Bald Heads and Golden Feathers

Not long ago, driving along at about sixty on a road that begins the climb into the Cascades, where cattle pasturelands meld into oak woodlands, I narrowly missed having a front grill full of raptors. A Golden Eagle was determined to steal a Bald Eagle’s fresh catch. With talons extended and brilliant brown-gold wings wide, it made a bold attempt. The Bald Eagle just as determined not to lose his hard-caught meal, dived on a course that would lead the two across my path–neither of them paying much attention to my approaching red, no less, SUV. God had to have intervened. Half a second before a collision, the eagles, with powerful wings flapping, turned straight up into the vivid blue sky. A gopher landed with a thump on the pavement just as my car rolled across it. I looked back by way of the rearview mirror and watched the Bald Eagle swoop down along my tailgate and snatch his lost dinner off the tarmac.

In one park or another over the years, I’ve witnessed eagles’ intelligence and audacity. For instance, I’d pulled into one of my favorite pullouts along the Madison River in Yellowstone to check on a family of Trumpeter Swans I’d been keeping track of from time to time. They were elsewhere, but I noticed a Bald Eagle bouncing up and down along the river’s edge, as if balancing on a bouncing ball. So I climbed out of the car and walked closer to get a better look. Eagle wasn’t happy about that and took off. Lo and behold, up pops a Canada Goose. Lucky goose I’d come along. Weighing as much as an eagle, the Bald was attempting to take the fight out of the goose by drowning it.

Several years before that encounter, I enjoyed the most spectacular of sights. It occurred on a trip to visit friends in Assateague Island National Seashore in Virginia. Driving down US 13 one passes a large dirt pullout surrounded by mammoth trees on three sides. I usually pulled over there to stretch my legs and take in the salt air and did the same that day. To my delight, one of the massive trees was decorated as if with candles on all its limbs, but the candles turned out to be dozens upon dozens of Bald Eagles. What they were doing there I’d no notion, but the sight was awe inspiring, a memory I cherish.

Some years later, Steve’s assignment had us living at Flamingo, one of the resort communities in Everglades National Park. Flamingo is fifty miles into the park from the entrance gate. The road emerges from the mangrove forest that edges the water around Flamingo and crosses some wonderful interior grassy wetlands on its way to park headquarters and the entrance gate. On a shopping trip to town soon after we’d moved in, I spotted what I knew were two Golden Eagles. At that time Goldens weren’t thought to be found east of the Mississippi River. Braking and pulling over, I climbed out to validate what I spotted. Sure enough–a beautiful pair of Golden Eagles were hunting over the glades and grassland. They’d always been my favorite raptor. I watched for quite a while, coming to the decision I needed to report my find to the person in the park responsible for recording such findings.

I was directed to the correct office only to stand there listening to the implication that since I wasn’t a park naturalist I couldn’t possibly recognize the birds I’d seen, and besides, Goldens aren’t an eastern bird. I went on with my shopping, feeling a little more than disgusted, angry would be the feeling. A few days later, a neighbor brought over the newspaper folded to display a certain article. He pointed and scowled at it. “You won’t believe this,” he said. Damn and damn, wouldn’t you know it? That person responsible for recording findings got his name in the paper as the first person to spot Golden Eagles east of the Mississippi River. The hundreds of NPS people I’ve known over the years are wonderful, respectful and honest people, just not that one.