6:48 a.m. (sunrise two minutes earlier than yesterday). 19 degrees (a veritable heatwave), wind NW 1 mph. Sky: grayish light, flat and untextured, an absence of warm color, a heavenly malaise unsuitable for Valentine's Day. Permanent streams: no new mink sign or openings or snow, an aching flow dampened by recent weather's weight. Wetlands: sleepy marsh under a listless sky . . . then, suddenly, the bald eagles appear, conjured out of the east. A twosome high above the reeds, heading north, love-struck. Courtship, airborne gymnasts above a lonely marsh. The female rolls over. Flies upside down. Touches the male's talons, the ultimate high-five (actually high-four). And, for the moment, transitory bliss for me. Slow rhythmic wingbeats, effortless flight, each wing slightly bent at the wrist—both birds cackle, chicken-voiced raptors. I watch the eagles disappear behind the pines, the wind dissolving their discordant titters. Unmuzzled, the morning becomes rich with possibility. Pond: black puck on clear ice in front of red goal.
On the road back home, red crossbills in the pines, chatter slightly softer than the eagles’. Even though it's twenty-four degrees warmer than yesterday morning, chickadees refrain from singing. Perhaps, stymied by cloud cover. Pileated laughs, the insanity of a woodpecker, then nothing—no drumming either by pileated or hairy. February sunshine, lodestone that triggers good thoughts, as well as bird music.
2020, Year of the Pandemic: thirty-seven bald eagles nested in Vermont, fledged sixty-four chicks. A modern-day record. Extirpated as a breeder in the 1940s. Returned in 2008. Hopefully, here to stay. It’s a rare trip down the interstate when I don't see one.
February 18, 2017: Addison, Vermont, Route 17, east of the Crown Point Bridge. Birding at fifty miles per hour. A bald eagle pair. Aerial courtship, a ballet that made looking at the road difficult (if not dangerous). Talons touching, the female upside down. Then, to consummate their romance, the eagles landed in the crown of a dead pine. Abruptly, I pulled over. The male mounted the female, tails to the side—avian procreation over in the blink of an eye, an afternoon quicky. Birds aloft, again. Courting, a repeat performance. No time for a cigarette or a glass of water. No sandwich. No nap. No anything. The male dove, wings up, primaries splayed like fingers—talons clenched. Over, the female rolled—eyes on the sky. And off the eagles flew, brown wings in sync, white tails opening and closing like a card trick.
Bald eagles have four different sightlines (the foveae, small pits in the retina packed with light-sensing cones and rods)—points of extreme visual detail. We have one per eye. Eagles have two, all pointing in different directions. Eighty percent of an eagle's fovea is packed with color-sensing cones, compared to only five percent of ours. Gorging on detail, an eagle sees a landscape intensely colored and vividly contrasted.
Eagles’ world: impossible to imagine. Grabbing their invisible lifeline, I stand stunned as a lackluster morning turns inside out.
"Eagles’ world: impossible to imagine. Grabbing their invisible lifeline, I stand stunned"--Joy Harjo shares your sense of wonder in "Eagle Poem":
To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear;
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.