06:50, 56F. pale sky with 3 pink contrails crossing from the SE. usual dawn chorus. roosters contributing. foggy.
07:50, 67F, fog lifting. encountered br'er rabbit in the lane while walking one of the dogs. he/she darted out of a clump of grass at the base of a sand pine and charged down the lane in front of us. I'm hoping that it was a ms. brer rabbit, whose offspring will populate the cactus field that runs along the lane. but - this encounter is nothing compared to what I saw on my way home from CK this afternoon. on SR 24, bordered by the CK Scrub, I passed a golden eagle snacking on a road-killed deer! it was not an immature eagle - this eagle was a very large mature golden eagle, who looked me in the eye as I passed in my truck. wow! some of the biologist have been swearing that they've seen golden eagles in the vicinity but except for a sighting out in the marsh from a distance away that I was not sure of, I had not seen one. but this was for real. that bird was magnificent.
otherwise, low 70's in CK with ibis in the marsh and scaups in the tide. high at 16:20. variable light winds shifting from the NE to the S.
20:00, 66F. waxing crescent moon high in the west. floating over the cabbage palms like in the S.C. state flag!
