We had just finished our flying for the day. Having repeated the pronghorn transects whose data had yesterday magically, mysteriously disappeared into the ethernet somewhere in the process of transferring from the PDA we took in the plane to the computer on the ground.

All $500 worth of data. An hour and a half of flying yesterday afternoon that suddenly got scratched off as a training flight. But given all the errors that had occurred on that flight, including having to turn around and rerun one transect because the fancy laser altimeter decided to quit bluetoothing with the fancy PDA... well calling it all a training session was probably wise.

This afternoon's flight went much better, except of course for the clouds and wind. But we passed over the river that final time without suffering any major misshaps, and considered the day done.

I looked at the trees just down the river, and asked the pilot,

Have you seen the eagles yet this year?

"No, but their nest is right there", he answers. "Want to check it out?"

Knowing darn well I do, else why would I have waited 'til now to ask? It's only a mile or so away, which is nothing at 80-100 knots.

And they were there...

An adult bald eagle in the dead snag by the river, and two large not-yet-bald eaglets in the nest in the living tree.

Cool.

When we landed, the pilot radioed ahead to his hangar to see if they'd killed the rattlesnake on runway 28.

We'd spotted it on our takeoff after lunch. A rattler, all flattened out on the warm asphalt, sucking every calorie of warmth it could from the black runway on a cool spring day.

Neither I nor my observer said anything as the pilot radioed for the snake's destruction, even though we both like snakes.

Even though it's a half-mile from any occupied building.

Running the airport is his job, after all.

So he was none to happy to learn his mechanic had found the snake, but let it live. Claiming it was a bullsnake.

And you don't kill bullsnakes, his wife reprimanded.

But the pilot was sure he'd seen rattles on the thing. And "bullsnakes don't have rattles".

Me, I never saw any rattles, but yeah, it was the exact color and pattern of a rattler, not a bullsnake.

As the pilot fumed into his office with gear from the plane, his wife whispered across the counter...

"The mechanic likes snakes."

Well, cool again!