I wrote this around the first week of February 2010. The eagle sightings seem to be the highest throughout the month of January. Less open water in the area, but stretches of the river can still be open. Seems to attract them.
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The plan on Sunday was to go explore an abandoned and collapsed house I had found near Orchard Road. My daughters seemed to have inherited this exploratory nature from me and Leah was up for a little exploring. Whenever the two of us head out on one of these adventures we get the same warning from my wife . . . if you guys get arrested for trespassing, don’t call me.
I have walked along the area where the abandoned house is for the past ten years. Countless times I have passed the hill where the house sits. I never saw it till the fall of 2009. It stood out like a sore thumb even though there were still a fair amount of leaves on the trees. Funny how you can walk past a spot a hundred times and still find something completely new. I knew now that with the undergrowth gone and some fresh snow on the ground it would stand out even more.
While trying to find an ice and snow free spot to park the car, we cruised down the road that runs along the river. There was a car parked on the side with a foot long lens sticking out the window. Of course I had to stop to see what they were photographing. It was a bald eagle sitting on a log on the other side of the river. I know this stretch like the back of my hand and where it was sitting is very shallow. Huge schools of carp sit out there sunning themselves even in the summer. To get past the eagle into the deeper channel behind the island, they have to go past the spot where the eagle was sitting. That stretch is so shallow that half the carp sticks up out of the water as they swim the shallows.
Perfect feeding spot.
I took a few shots with my point and shoot, but they pretty much suck. You can tell it’s an eagle, kind of.
We sat and watched as the eagle launched into the air and starting heading down the river. It’s wings initially looked like the tips were touching the water. I was jealous of the person in the car with the long lens. They were getting some good shots. We went to find our parking spot. The car with the photographer was leaving the area and I had to flag them down. I introduced myself to new found fellow Fox River Valley explorers Larry and Deb Granat. They were kind enough to trust a total stranger wanting to trade email addresses just to get better pictures of an eagle. Winds up that they live about a mile down river from where I live. They had seen the eagle cruising the river up stream and decided to see if they could follow it. They wound up at Saw-wee-kee about 5 miles from where they started.
I need to get me a camera like they have.
My daughter and I wandered down the railroad tracks east of Orchard Road. We talked of other times I’ve had her out exploring abandoned things. She seems to have picked up another one of my traits. She finds herself thinking about the house, the people that lived there and what their lives must have been like. Why would they just get up and leave a house and never come back. Why not at least give it to someone in their family. Some of the things we’ve found looked like someone was going to be back at any moment, even though we know they had been gone for decades.
This one was different. Mother nature was quickly winning the war.
The living room area of the house seems to have taken the biggest blows. Trees were growing up out of the collapsed wooden floor.
We wandered around the house kicking through the snow and piles of stuff that had been dumped all around. A food cellar was about 50 feet away. Ball jars used for canning were scattered everywhere. Old clothes line poles were standing stark amid saplings. An old aluminum coffee pot lay in another heap of garbage.
The open kitchen door looked inviting in an odd way. Waiting for someone to step in.
Only, part of the kitchen had been dragged out into the yard.
The old fireplace was the most impressive. Still standing solid. Made of the limestone from the river. It barely showed any wear. Through the collapsed wall of the house you could see into the living room with the fireplace.
My daughter wanted to go inside to look around, but the floors were too far rotted and gone. Normally this doesn’t stop us, but this house was built up on limestone columns and the floor had collapsed around them. It was impossible to tell if there were any holes under the house. Best this time to play it safe. The kitchen looked like it had been trashed by others that had raided the place, but you could still see the old wallpaper patterns and other decorative touches now sometimes hanging from the walls.
She insisted she had to have one picture of her somewhere in or on the building. We compromised and I let her jump up on a windowsill after thoroughly testing that it wouldn’t collapse around her.
While we were there we heard red tailed hawks screeching over head. There were 3 of them making a racket. As they came over the clearing where the house stood, we could see that they were chasing the eagle. The eagle landed in a tree practically over our heads, but the hawks attacked it before I could get a picture. The eagle was moving like it was more annoyed then afraid. It never seemed in all that big of a hurry to get away.