Christmas Day surprises

It doesn't matter how many times you walk the same path, it is never exactly the same and sometimes, something really can surprise you.

We set out on our normal walk along the dike today, 

this Bald Eagle flew down and started eating a rather disgusting looking dead fish....nothing surprising there.

a couple of Northwestern Crows flew down in hopes of getting a share....

No, it was further along that the first surprise showed up.  Look very, very closely at the above photo....do you notice anything, because I did and said 'what the heck is that!'

'that' turned out to be a Raccoon, sound asleep in this nest of branches!  Now we know that there has to be raccoon's over here, but until today, we'd never seen one over there and we'd never seen a raccoon sleeping in a tree before.

The next surprise, unfortunately we didn't get a picture of as we were too much in shock watching a Peregrine Falcon attacking a Bald Eagle!  The eagle had been flying to join it's mate that was perched in a tree when the falcon came out of nowhere and went after it.  What a gusty bird!

on the return trip, the raccoon was still asleep and this eagle pair were at their nest.