Face to Face
Sometimes, it’s OK to gush. And that’s what I’m inclined to do with this entry today, to simply overflow with superlatives about what I experienced yesterday on one of my mid-winter runs in this decidedly un-winterlike season. The entire episode simply affirms the notion that we should always be on the lookout for the gift of unexpected spectacle, especially in Nature.
One of my usual running routes in the summer takes me along the banks of the Upper Iowa River as it flows through the Luther College campus. It’s a stretch of river that meanders, and the trail which mimics it is part of the college’s cross-country route. Trees line both sides of the trail, with the river just below the bank to the left. I entered the trail at full plodding (my version of running), undoubtedly making enough noise with my heavy strides to alert any wildlife there of my approach. And as I rounded the first curve, an enormous flutter stopped me in my tracks. Directly in front of me, perhaps ten feet from where I now stood, a magnificent, adult bald eagle rose powerfully from a limb overhanging the river. If you have never been in the close presence of a fully-matured bald eagle, words will not adequately convey the tangible sense of awe and majesty which it conveys. If you have been in such proximity, you will readily recognize how the sight actually took my breath away. That sight alone was worth the price of my run! The white-crowned mammoth glided across the river and downstream, soon perched high up in an adjacent tree, all the while screeching its eagle call in response to my intrusion or as a triumphant call of escape or…
…or as a warning cry to someone else. I have heard that screeching parental cry many times as I have watched Decorah’s famous eaglets on the “eagle cam” each summer. So I instinctively turned back to the tree from which the eagle had taken flight, looking for someone who might have been left behind in the sudden escape. And for a second time in as many minutes my breath was literally taken away by the sight before me. There on the same tree, on a branch several feet higher than the first launch pad, sat a second eagle. Smaller than the first but with all of the usual adult makings, the creature sat no more than twelve feet from where I stood, curiously transfixed by my presence, its eagle eye upon me but with no urgency to flee. I thought that I could detect a nervous sensitivity to its parent’s screeching across the river, but it maintained its position and examination of me, the grounded intruder, for minutes on end. I never moved in my stance, trading curious looks eye-to-eye with Nature itself.
In the course of the stare-down, I became distracted by yet another movement directly across the stream from where my newfound observer sat. In a tree on the opposite bank sat a third eagle, similar in size and aspect to the second one before me. By now I’m fairly certain that my jaw had dropped open in disbelief. Eagles are quite common in the Decorah area, but I had never previously had the good fortune to be so close to so many of these amazing hunters. My watch remained steadily upon the one close to me, but occasionally I stole a peek at the other, to see whether there would be any interactions. Meanwhile, the parent screeched its warning call continuously, certainly more savvy about the perils of being close to mankind than either of the younger birds.
Five minutes or so into this contest, the parent’s cries finally prevailed and with a magnificent push from the limb on which it had rested, the eagle in front of me lifted itself into the air and made a beeline flight to the tree of its presumed parent. I could not help but openly smile at the display of grace and power before me, the true embodiment of shock and awe, and I reached out to this beautiful creature as it rose, so close was I to its departure. The third eagle across the river held its position, so my attention immediately went back to the reunion just downstream.
Reunion is the right word in this case. My focus some twenty yards downstream was on the two eagles already of my acquaintance. But perched above the two, at the top of the barren, wintering tree, sat a fourth member of the family. High enough off the ground and silhouetted against the winter-grey sky, eagle number four could have been a second parent overseeing the afternoon’s outing or perhaps a third youngster learning the places and people of the Oneota Valley; I could not discern its size or markings. But I did recognize what a unique and magnificent sighting had unfolded before me. I watched the family for a while longer and then, perhaps foolishly, waved good-bye as I set off on the trail once again. I thought the parent might have rustled its wings in response, but I may have been imagining.
Thoreau wrote to us, “We need the tonic of the wilderness, to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hens lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe…. At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable…. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.” The mystery and the majesty encountered on this outing pours out affirmation upon such feelings, made my breathing easier and my footfalls lighter than they might otherwise have been. I still feel the effects of the chance encounter, filled with its wonder. It’s a Christmas gift worth gushing about….
