Yesterday, we went over the river and through the woods. I was the grandmother, but just to two of the three dogs. The other dog was mine. As was the girl, who brought her man.
We went over the river and through woods behind maybe 20 volunteers walking with maybe 20 dogs from the county shelter. They all go out once a month for a “pack walk” in the park, and to be honest that was the best news I’d heard all day, but it was still early.
We went over the river and through the woods with a chilly wind at our backs and a bright blue sky overhead and pretty good directions on how to spot the eagle’s nest, which itself was over the river on the other side. “You can’t miss it,” someone had written on Facebook. After overshooting a critical trail by about a mile, we were pretty sure we were up for the challenge of missing it, but eventually a seasoned student of nature gave us some specifics and there we were. Sidebar: I’m pretty sure we indeed could have missed it if we’d tried harder.
We had binoculars. Even better, we found a photographer with a tripod and a long lens, who had been watching the nest for a couple of hours and had seen the parents switch shifts. The eggs had hatched, he said, but the chicks were still too small to see. That was just fine, because we absolutely could and did see that proud white head and a bit of shoulder emerging from the massive nest of sticks and branches, and that was enough. If you have seen an eagle once or twice in the wild — or even 17 times, I’d venture — you know what I mean.
In 1963, thanks to hunting and DTT pesticide poisoning, which caused eggs to become fragile, the eagle population in the contiguous U.S. had dipped down to only 417 nesting pairs. Sixty-one years later, thanks to new laws and conservation efforts, there are 71,400 nesting pairs, and an estimated 316,700 individual eagles in the U.S., according to the American Eagle Foundation. Ohio, where I live, has more than 900 nesting pairs.
If you sometimes wonder whether Americans can pull together to turn things around, good news abounds in wildlife conservation efforts.
We watched the magnificent white head above the enormous nest for a few minutes. I can’t speculate what the rest of our little troupe was thinking, but what I always wonder when I see birds in the wild is what it’s like to be content just … being.
And then we walked back through the woods and over the river. The girl’s man spotted a red-shouldered hawk on the ground — fully camouflaged, if you ask me, but he saw it just the same. The hawk wheeled up through the trees clutching what we decided must have been a snake.
Back at the car, we wiped off muddy dog bellies and declared it a very good day, because: eagle. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Happy Monday to you.
Thanks for such an uplifting story to start my week!
I loved walking with one particular friend because he was always able to see the birds, and insects, and plants, and would then patiently help me to see them. And no, I would not be the person to ensure you found the right path, or the nest. Nope.