The Bald Eagles Have Returned

Sitting here in my little house by the sea, I was happily gazing out at the ocean surf when a bird -- a very large and graceful bird -- passed by my window.  Once you have seen a bald eagle glide across a bright blue sky with its massive wings outstretched, the tips nearly barely moving, you never forget the image.  

Yes, the bald eagles have returned to Roads End, Oregon.  Over the next few months, we will play the "Where's Waldo" game on our beach walks hoping to see the elusive but immediately recognizable  form of our resident bald eagles. 

Amazing to behold!

Home and Home

I am on a journey -- a journey half-way across this great country, the United States of America.  A quick four hour flight takes me from one landscape to another, from one terrain to another, from one collection of flora and fauna to another, from the crashing surf of the Pacific Ocean the rolling Flint Hills of Kansas, from where I now call home to where I grew up.   

 

 







I left my home on the Oregon coast this morning in a light drizzle with the constant sound of the surf accompanying the call of the seagulls gliding by my windows.  This afternoon I will arrive in Kansas where with the threat of a thunderstorm the rain may fall in buckets amid the sound of rolling thunder and flashes of lightning to give way to a glorious sunset over a rain drenched landscape.    Oregon and Kansas.

 

Home and home.  

Elephant Song

Recently, my husband and I were at a library book sale and walking through the aisles of used books, a title jumped out at me.  Elephant Song.  The title alone enticed me to add the book to my already bulging $5 sack of books. The cover photo and jacket synopsis did the rest.  The book was added to my stack of "must reads". 

Elephant Song by Wilbur Smith is an historical suspense novel taking place in Zimbabwe and London.  The book opens with a deeply disturbing and graphic description of the culling or slaughter of a herd of fifty elephant in the Chiwewe National Park of Zimbabwe. 

Since I visited Zimbabwe's Hwange National park in the late 1990's and saw several herds of elephant of this size, the opening events of  Elephant Song was even more appalling to me. Smith's writing is gripping and visual.  The reader becomes part of that unholy event. 

The opening chapter of Elephant Song brought back so many vivid memories of my visit to Hwange National Park and Zimbabwe in general.  What a life changing experience it was!