The wife and I had a really cool experience this weekend when a golden eagle visited our farm. This was our first encounter w/one. We do get bald eagles fairly regularly and thought perhaps this guy was a juvenile; however, this bird was decidedly different and fit every description of a golden eagle. They are pretty rare for our region, which is south central IL. He stayed around for 4-5 minutes and flew pretty low over us so we got an excellent look at him and also captured him on video. We also experienced our first osprey and sandhill cranes this year.

On a different note, we're getting lots of visiting ducks on our pond. Yesterday, we had 3 pairs of wood ducks and a bufflehead. We've also had mergansers.