Eagle watch

We saw more bald eagles near Saylorville Lake on Sunday February 22, 2009. These eagles were mature – white heads, white tails, not thrilled with all the attention.

For a first stop we parked and hiked down to the Lake above the dam at one of the closed camp site roads. It is an understatement to say it was cool and breezy on the shore of the lake. No eagles there. Just a couple of frozen “turkeys.”

We headed over to the Saylorville Lake Visitor Center and took in part of a talk by a ranger. He kept all of the little and large kids entertained with his props and facts. (DNR has more information.)

The ranger shared that the eaglets

• start at 3 ounces
• require early imprinting to survive
• weigh 5 pounds at 3 weeks thanks to fish every waking hour

The stages of development include

• branchers
• wingers, and
• the eaglets need their big talons to hang on to the branches in the nest.
• Even then they sometimes fall from the nest and are lost to the fall or once on the ground to predators like raccoons.

Then we were off to the Cottonwood Recreation Area (open Sunday for the Eagle Watch 2009 ). (Watch out because the map is sideways but) Cottonwood is below the dam where the water is open and open water allows the eagles to fish. Folks from the Audubon Society were set up there with spotting telescopes that gave a pretty good view. I pointed my Nikon COOLPIX through a spotter and got the picture to the right. I tried my zoom and got the thumbnail on the mainpage.

Sunday’s Eagle Watch was jointly sponsored with help from

• U. S. Army Corps of Engineers
• Iowa DNR
• Polk County Conservation Board
• Dallas County Conservation Board
• Des Moines Audubon Society, a branch of Iowa Audubon.

Watch for the next Eagle Watch, but in the meantime, keep your eyes peeled for bald eagles when you are anywhere below the dam and near the Des Moines River. They soar, they’re big, they beat their wings slowly, and you can’t miss their distinctive white head and white tail.

photos by James G. Lindberg

The Film World Is Flat

Friday night the Purple Wren and I wanted to go to a movie so I checked the listings on-line and read a few reviews. Slumdog Millionaire, The Reader, and Milk made the short list. After reading Entertainment Weekly’s review of Slumdog Millionaire, I had a strong sense that we had better see that one and soon. It was playing at the Varsity, Fleur Cinema, Merle Hay Mall Cinema, and Carmike Wynnsong 16. We were a little early and didn’t want to stand out in the cold so we went to the Fleur Cinema.

I have to go back a long way to find a movie I liked as much as Slumdog Millionaire.

• read the review first
• keep your expectations in check
• go see it, but
• relax and just let the film be what it is

It has some elements that are atypical. The violence doesn’t involve cars; the music is unique; the actors/actresses don’t have blue eyes and blond hair; both the poverty and aspirations look different; there was some Hindi spoken; it was filmed in Mumbai.

You don’t want to miss this one. Thomas Friedman wrote The World Is Flat a few years ago in which (among other things) he noted the rise of India as a force capable of competing for attention in the US business and labor markets. Slumdog Millionaire won eight Oscars on Sunday night including Best Picture, Director, Best Song, and Best Musical Score; it looks like the film world is flat too. Are you ready for Bollywood?

photo by flickr by gosub

Chocolate? Not always

Will it melt in your mouth or stick to the roof of your mouth?

Maybe they hoped you wouldn’t notice, but The Hershey’s Company changed the formulation for some but not all of their candy. The news broke in September, 2008. Now Hershey’s has changed the names of some of their products because they can’t call them milk chocolate. What’s that slogan again? Is it, “If it’s Hershey’s, you’d better read the label?” I am not sure I have it quite right, but it’s something like that. I’m afraid, we’ll just have to read the label carefully. With an American icon like Hershey’s, I shouldn’t have to do that. Some of it’s milk chocolate; some of it ain’t.

Chemists use the term formula to describe the mixture of particular materials (ingredients) and amounts that go into various products, especially those that are sold to the public. It might be food, paint, steel, medicine, paper, ink, glue, or plastic. The term formulation describes the process of putting it together. Every commercial product has its own formula.

By law you can’t call a product milk chocolate unless it contains cocoa butter. In 2007, according to the New York Times (and elsewhere) in spite of lobbying by U. S. manufacturers to cheapen the ingredients, the FDA held their ground on chocolate.

On Friday when I told a friend of mine about the recent changes in some chocolate-like candy, she talked about her perception of the difference between real chocolate and the chocolate-like candy that looks like chocolate but now lacks the name. She talked about the oily film that formed on the roof of her mouth with some products. We talked about some of the better chocolates including European chocolate. She asked me what brands. When I suggested Lindt’s as one, she happily showed me the Lindt chocolate her husband had given her for Valentine’s Day. Lately I have found European chocolates Lindt, Toblerone, and Ritter Sport and American chocolate Ghirardelli in a lot of local grocery stores.

Of course you can always find great chocolates at Chocolaterie Stam right here in Des Moines too.

If you see a little chocolate on the Purple Wren’s beak this week, it came from Chocolaterie Stam on Ingersoll.

Real chocolate costs a little more, but after all it’s not my lunch, it’s dessert!

photo by flickr by fensterbme and eszter

Climb Iowa 2009

Climb Iowa at 801 Grand is coming up! Good choice of words, eh? It’s also called 801 Grand Power Climb if you are a little more macho. In either case it is your big chance to

• climb the 41 floors/85 flights/nearly 1000 steps of Des Moines’ tallest building – 801 Grand
• Sunday, February 22, 2009 but you must
• register by Monday February 16, 2009.

It’s a fundraiser for the American Lung Association. You can be part of one of many teams or participate as an individual. There are other ways to take part than climbing the stairs. Check the links.

photo by flickr by mdrewe

Hoops 4 Hope, the Des Moines connection

Lately, we’re seeing a lot about Hoops 4 Hope, a loose consortium of activities raising money for cancer prevention, detection, and cure. Depending on who’s sponsoring it, each Hoops for Hope activity has a slightly different spin. The original Hoops 4 Hope game was in 2006 at North Carolina State University as a tribute to legendary women’s basketball coach Kay Yow while she was still alive. Kay Yow died on January 24, 2009 after a 21 year fight with breast cancer.

And here is the Des Moines connection:

Kay’s sister is Susan Yow, Drake women’s basketball coach from 1986-90. Susan Yow was NC State’s first All-American while playing for her older sister. Susan Yow is currently head coach at Belmont Abbey College in NC and coached her team on the day of her big sister’s death. The coach of her opponent that day was a Kay Yow protégé. If you knew Susan at Drake, you will recognize her in the photo at Kay’s funeral in Cary, NC.

One of Susan Yow’s players at Drake was All-American Jan Jensen, now associate head coach at the University of Iowa.

Beneficiaries of Hoops for Hope games have been:

• The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation
• Kay Yow/WBCA with lots of names you will recognize
• American Cancer Society
• and many other organizations

Speaking of cancer prevention, I read an interesting print article on cancer in Wired last week. You can read it too. It’s available on-line – seven, informative pages. Their primary point is that as a society we should focus on early detection. Cure rates of cancers are high when they are detected early (They say 90%); in contrast, cure rates are abyssmal when they are detected late (They say 10%.). The Drake women’s Hoops 4 Hope game on 2/14/2009 included a half-time speaker (a physician) who echoed the need for regular testing for early detection, especially prostate tests for men and breast exams for women. Whatever reason you might have for not following up, your reason is not good enough. Do it. I’m up-to-date. Why am I up-to-date, you ask? The Purple Wren harasses me when I’m not.

photo by flickr by ncsunewsdept

Go see the eagles

No matter where you live in Des Moines, it’s a short trip to see eagles. They live year round on the Des Moines River just east of Principal Park.

You can park south of the Des Moines River near S. E. Livingston and E. 6th and walk onto the E. 6th bridge. Then look east toward S. E. 14th or look up. They are in the trees, they fish, and they soar (like eagles should). It’s always good to get outside, even or maybe even especially in the winter. It’s your big chance. They are bald eagles.

If you are looking for a bald eagle with a white head, you may or may not see one. Many are immature. (Note: you may not want to call a bald eagle immature to its face. Even the immature subadults make a crow look small.) Wikipedia has a pretty nice article with several more photos.

You won’t see an eagle as close as in the photo on the right (taken by Timothy K. Hamilton in Alaska), but they are still impressive.

• really big, even from a great distance (Adults have a wingspan of 6 to 8 feet.)
• a very slow and powerful flapping of the wings

Eagles are known for their keen vision (as in eagle eye), dive speed (would you believe 200 mph?), and sharp, strong talons. It doesn’t even have to reach up to adjust its binocular vision. Bald eagles don’t like to be in populated areas so we are lucky to have them close enough to watch. And when you check ‘em out, remember that they can see you a lot better than you can see them.

photos by Flickr by Creativity+ Timothy K Hamilton and by James G. Lindberg

One Hundred Wins

A great coach, a hot team, and 100 wins for Drake women’s basketball coach Amy Stephens.

The Bulldogs are playing well. They’ve won 10 of their last 11 games with a hard-nosed defense, a balanced offense (with a lot of players who can score quickly), and a roster full of players who love the game. There were many highlights in the afternoon game on February 14:

• hot pink jerseys as part of Drake’s support of Hoops 4 Hope
• solid contributions by every member of their balanced 8 player rotation
• a defense that made me happy to be in the stands and not on the floor
• free pink Hoops 4 Hope t-shirts to all the fans

and best of all

• Coach Stephens won her 100th game at Drake.

I’m sure there is bark and bite in practice and the locker room, but judging by the player reaction at the end of the game, this team loves its coach. In the photo to the left you can see Coach Stephens acknowledging the crowd of 3900 while assistant Todd Voss holds the 100th win game ball and the team looks on.

Looking on besides Monique’ Jones (#45) of Lee’s Summitt, MO and Amber Wollschlager (#34) of Milbank, SD, there is local celebrity Kristin Turk (#23) of Des Moines Lincoln.

This is a Drake team with at least 10 stars and potentially more. The only reason they use an 8 player rotation is a couple of injuries. They are worth watching and you’ve got two more chances to see them here in town – Thursday March 5 at 7:05pm against Illinois State and Saturday March 7 at 2:05 pm against Indiana State.

photos by James G. Lindberg