It's Calving Season and that Means Eagles

Although I live in California, Northern Nevada's Carson Valley is just a 45 minute drive from my house in Tahoe City.  I live on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe, but the lake is divided in half with the western portion belonging to California and the eastern to Nevada.  I live at altitude 6200' and the Carson Valley is a steep drop down to 4700'.  There is virtually no agriculture at the lake, unless you count a few hand-gathered pine nuts and goose berries (and one crazy farmer growing micro-greens in a greenhouse in the town of Truckee), but Carson Valley has a long tradition of ranching, both cattle and sheep.

Cattle Grazing in the Carson Valley

Map of the Carson Valley.  

Sierra Views

The gorgeous high desert sage of Carson Valley is surrounded by steep and glorious Sierra peaks.  The weather can be cold in the winter and hot in the summer, but the sun shines often, the air is clear and the vistas are magnificent.

German ranchers came to the valley as early as the 1850's and the earliest grew dairy cattle in order to make butter, which was delivered by wagon to the Placer gold mining towns in an arduous trip over the Sierra's.  Later, Basque shepherds arrived to herd sheep.  Eventually ditch irrigation from the Carson River allowed most of the valley to be developed and ranched.  There is still a lot of livestock kept in the valley today.  Cows and horses are ubiquitous.  And you still see quite a few sheep, too.

What's that about eagles?

It's January in the Carson Valley and that means calves.  They're everywhere right now and a lot of them are just days old.  Eagles love to feed on their after-birth which means that the valley is busy with the flapping and soaring of visiting eagles who make the January pilgrimage yearly. 

Mom keeps an eye on her baby while grazing.  Just one of dozens of small calves we saw on our tour.

Yesterday I attended the annual Eagles and Agriculture gathering where we visited four local ranches to observe and photograph eagles.  We saw quite a few but we also saw other raptors including red tail hawks and owls.

"Calf and Eagle Playing" by Eagles and Agriculture Photo Contest Winner Merry Mulligan

Reno Audobon Society members were on hand, setting up scopes and helping the crowd locate the birds.  Although we spotted many, they were in quite distant fields requiring binoculars and telephoto lenses to view them properly.  I did not bring a tripod and the images in my camera with my full telephoto extended were swinging wildly as I tried to locate the eagles in my viewfinder.  I did get a few photos though: 

My photo.  Can you see him?  The dark shapes in the foreground are cows in case you're wondering.  Not quite an award winning photo, but I did get an eagle!

Later, I shocked myself  and actually managed to get a photo of the same eagle taking off.  I got so excited when he started to move that the camera image jumped everywhere.  It's honestly miraculous that he ended up in the frame.  Okay, it's definitely blurry, but don't deny me the little pleasure of actually catching him in flight.

We had great tour guides at each of the ranches and also in our buses.  My favorite was this authentic cowboy on horseback from the Uhart ranch.

Fifth generation Uhart rancher.  He has both cattle and sheep but says that although he originally started the sheep as "lawnmowers", he now mostly just keeps them just for fun.  Notice the hot air balloon in the background.

Sheep and lambs at the Uhart ranch:

I had a great day on the tour, got to learn a lot about Carson Valley's colorful history (sheephearders vs. ranchers--it's all about water rights, lynchings and hangings, and the Pyramid Lake War of 1860-- settlers vs. Paiute tribe), explored historic ranches up close and viewed some amazing birds.  The tour is every year in January.  If you want to attend next year, you can sign up at www.carsonvalleynv.org or call 775-782-8144.  By the way, they do a Saturday afternoon photography class followed by Sunday morning field photography.  I think I'll try that next year.