It's been crazy-busy again, and I've been traveling a lot, so I'm behind once again on the posts. Despite all the crazy travel, we managed to sneak in a fun day out in the valley at the Fraser Valley Bald Eagle Festival. We went with our friend Katie, who had done this tour a couple of years ago with her parents and raved about it. We booked a tour on boat that goes up the Fraser River to a spot where thousands of bald eagles come in to feed during migration every year. We weren't disappointed.

Saturday morning we drove out to Harrison Mills where the tour left from. There's a couple of options on the route out that way, and we chose the more scenic, off the highway route. It's really beautiful out that way, and we were blessed with many amazing views of the snowcapped mountains around the area.

As we were getting close to the general area, we started to see eagles along the river. At one spot, we caught a glimpse of some eagles sitting down in the river feeding on salmon, so we stopped and got out to take some pictures.

This one had found a nice sized dead salmon to chow down on.

Eagles weren't the only birds along the river.

One common theme - there was enough food around that none of the eagles were fighting over anything.

A juvenile up in the tree along the river.

We spent a bit of time taking some pictures and checking out the eagles before heading out, and completing the drive to the boat ramp for our tour.

Our boat, just before we headed out on the river.

The view from close to the boat launch - even one eagle in that tree, keeping an eye on us.

It was an overcast day, with lots of low hanging clouds that added a nice atmosphere to the day.

The boat was pretty good - the windows opened, and they didn't totally pack it. So Justine, Katie and I were all able to grab window seats on different sides of the boat. The captain was also really good about spinning the boat around when something interesting was on one sire of the boat, to give everyone a view of what was going on. As we headed out, there were two eagles on one of the pilings almost immediately.

We headed up the river, and almost immediately the number of eagles was just amazing. They claim this is the single biggest gathering of eagles anywhere, and I could believe it. Everywhere you looked - in the river, in the trees on either side, flying overhead - there were eagles. It was amazing to see.

Look closely - all those little "golf balls" in the tree are eagles.

This was typical of the river bank throughout the trip.

After our boat tour, we went for a bit of a drive. We had hoped to go see the salmon spanning channel, but it was closed, so we weren't able to check it out. We did have a couple more different raptor sighting along the way back.