RARA AVIS 05.11.2020

This post like some others is not exactly pottery related but I will mention the word pottery* so that will have to suffice and I suspect there may be some interest in such a rara avis. On Monday I spent the afternoon in the studio cleaning up, working on organizing, getting some dry batches made of the Oribe glaze and temmoku and getting some test pods and slabs made for an upcoming firing and by the time I was done it was around 5:40pm. As I came up from the studio I looked out the back bedroom window and saw a large, dark form which I assumed was a buzzard which are local to the area and commonly seen and on a whim decided to grab the camera and take a picture of it out in the freshly plowed field.

Once I got the camera in focus I was quite shocked, it wasn't at all what I thought, it was a Bald Eagle(Haliaeetus Ieucocephalus) of all things just standing guard out back buffeted by some cold spring winds. He stayed put for about five minutes or so while all the local crows were aghast at his nerve invading their sole territory and just like that he flew off. It may not sound like much of an encounter but since we have lived here, we have made three sightings of bald eagles, the other two out soaring over the Mohawk River down in the valley just south of our house and these sightings  are a bit rare.

I should mention that while living in CT we had a really up close encounter with a bald eagle as it landed on our back deck, just outside the kitchen sliding doors with some limp brown thing in its talons. This encounter was not photographed but the eagle left talon marks in the wood of the railing around the deck. As I said this is not exactly pottery related but I thought it pottery adjacent enough to post up a picture of a grand symbol of our country.

(* I did manage to mention pottery three different times and hope that will make all right with the world.)