Oh cool!!

  • On the way out to church this morn­ing, we saw a bald eagle. Is that not just the best?

    Greg and I regale each other with wildlife sight­ings from time to time. “Saw a pheas­ant on the road to the orchard.” “Saw a bunch of wild turkeys behind the gro­cery store.” “Saw a fox.” “Saw a heron.”

    We know we can’t share this goofy excite­ment with locals. They’re used to see­ing these things. So we tell each other, and keep count. Greg gen­er­ally comes out ahead, so I’m very glad I was in the car when we saw the eagle.

    What’s fun too was that we had just left town. There was some possum-esque road­kill ahead of us and we were see­ing a rather large bird zero­ing in on it. I for­get which one of us was talk­ing, but as we got closer we both for­got what we had been talk­ing about.
    “Is that –?”
    “What is that?”
    “It’s –”
    And it was. At the same moment that we were reg­is­ter­ing that the wingspan was too big for a hawk and that it didn’t have the dan­gling legs of a heron, it banked away from the road­kill and we got a great look at the white head and tail.
    “That’s a BALD EAGLE!”
    “It is! It is a BALD EAGLE!”

    All right, so we get a lit­tle excited. Still, … c’mon. That’s pretty darn cool. Greg wanted me to draw up a schematic that was some­thing like this:
    Eagle cartoon
    Well, that’s sort of it. Just for the exer­cise, I tried to sketch out more how it really looked. Because of course, in spite of being a really close look, it was still indis­tinct and on the move. So some­thing like this:
    Eagle sketch

    And you know? It was beau­ti­ful. I mean really. I remem­bered that Ben­jamin Franklin had wanted to make our national bird the turkey. But I’m glad he was over­ruled. Because I’ve seen turkeys, and they’re kinda neat. But there’s noth­ing like a bald eagle.


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    December 11th, 2005 | Grace | 5 Comments |

5 Responses and Counting...

  • Greg 12.11.2005

    The part that your gen­tle read­ers don’t get from this tale — the part that mat­ters most — is that I still win. Because I saw a moose.

    That is all. ;)

  • Grace

    Well, yeah. But you had to leave the coun­try to do it. That is, like, SO un-American.

  • Mimi

    You draw so well, Grace, that’s beautiful!

    I’ve lived here 13 years and still get giddy when I see a Bald Eagle. It’s ok!

  • Grace

    I had to go back and remind myself where you live. Well, any­place where they can been seen more is a good place IMHO. But then, I’ve only been here four years and this is our sec­ond sight­ing, so maybe I’m okay. :-)

  • This Side of Glory » Blog Archive » Amaz­ing road­kill sights on Hwy. 54

    […] (Deja vue: Other ani­mal sight­ings — live ones, by the way — recorded here have been owl, bald eagle and a baby cardinal/snake combo.) […]

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