Eagles and hidden love

Today I went for a walk. It was absolutely gorgeous outside, and after having a pretty shitty week, I needed to get out and cheer myself up with nature and birds. Especially since we're supposed to get freezing rain and snow soon... I thought I'd go spot an eagle or two while the weather was nice.

I walked down to the path that runs along the Mississippi just east of the boathouse, and headed south. There was not much out... a pair of male Hooded Mergansers (with a third mystery merganser) right away, and then just a few Mallards and a lone Canada Goose.

Duck tracks

I passed a woman with a dog, twice, and both times she gave me a huge grin. I'm not sure if she thought I was crazy, or thought it was cool that I was looking at birds... or both?

I kept on walking and found a nice little lonely park that I had never noticed before from the upper path. I hiked across the snow to reach the water's edge and found some duck prints. My feet also got soaked trudging through 1-2 ft deep snow... but alas, that is the price you must pay for pretty-ful nature.

Pretty little park

I passed a couple with a video camera, and I'm not sure what they were filming, but at one point the guy was making snow angels...

I kept going and found a Hairy Woodpecker. Nothing special, but still pretty cool.

I texted my mom a picture of the park, and she told me to watch out for muggers. I said I would, but so far I had only seen people with dogs and people making films and crazy people walking in circles. For at that moment, there was a woman walking on the main path about 50 yards away, but she appeared to be stopping and walking in small circles every so often...

Then my phone died so I decided I'd better scoot before a mugger found me.

I booked it back to the main path, got my feet very wet, and made sure to check out the woman's snow circles on the way. And then I realized, she was not just a crazy woman walking in circles... she was making careful shapes in the snow:

#1

#2

#3

I'm not sure who they were for, or if they were just for the world, but it felt like they were for me. A random message of love. So I stood there for a while in the snow, with the sun on my face, and the sound of people and traffic off in the distance, but the peace and quiet of nature much closer to me, and thought about how serendipitous it was that I should come across this woman's kind offering when I so needed it.

She was long gone, so I just said:

I finally saw my eagle unexpectedly when I was almost home, soaring in and out of view behind houses, far off in the distance.