… keeping it at a warm 99 degrees. The weary father now sits on a tree across from the aerie scanning the sky for ospreys that might fly too close and for the great horned owl that lives nearby. There is no end to danger. A breeze has come up and his exquisitely sensitive tail-feathers identify a storm system advancing. Lightning has proved fatal to several other chicks over the years. He lifts one talon then the other uneasily. The larger and heavier mother perches on the rim of the nest tearing at a limp silver fish, pieces of which she pokes down the beak of the dreamy princeling. He must be fed at least five times a day. It is his inalienable right as one of the newest members of the very, very ancient Bald Eagle Tribe.
Three hundred yards from their nest an orange barrier blocks the path. Though bald eagles have been present in North America for at least a million years, they are currently a threatened species and do not appreciate any human disturbance. The parents, whose ragged feathers indicate they are both close to twenty, and who have probably hatched at least thirty eaglets before this most recent one, do not take for granted the flourishing of their race. Few chicks survive their first year.
Their innocent son knows nothing of the peril of being a bald eagle although he is by no means a dunce. His eyes have been focused for only a few weeks, but he has already committed to memory the various landmarks around him: the charred snag silhouetted across the trail where his stoical father likes to sit; the two large, bulky osprey nests nearby, their strong and happy tenants coming and going at all hours; the faint blue haze perpetually above the Gulf. Although he cannot see actual water yet, he can hear the splash of a fish two miles away and he can closely follow the flight of three screaming seagulls as they cartwheel across the setting sun.
It is a wonderful place to live, this Honeymoon Island. Owls, gopher turtles, armadillos, rattlesnakes, ground doves and all the other neighbors are happily and quietly content in their good fortune. The creatures that live here among the dense scrub and white sand and blooming yellow cactus, including the herons and egrets and roseate spoonbills, are protected and left alone. Furthermore, neighboring ospreys soaring and dipping around the island are among the world’s greatest fishermen and they can easily be harassed into dropping their mullet into the talons of a devoted eagle striving to feed a newborn.
Among these more familiar neighbors, the newly hatched sea eagle has become a celebrity and here by the hastily constructed fence, there are a handful of gentle and respectful Audubon people milling around with telescopes and binoculars, watching the singular drama unfold. This is the first time in over forty years that a bald eagle has been born on Honeymoon Island. Even the wind sighing through the tall palm trees in the slash pine forest seems especially pleased.
When Europeans first came to North America, there were over five hundred thousand bald eagles soaring over the continent. Native Americans had lived peacefully and harmoniously with these eagles for centuries and looked upon them as sacred beings, able to drag the sun across the sky, able to bring messages to the gods, able to bestow courage and strength upon a mere human being. Even one of their feathers dropped on the ground was considered a sacred treasure to be passed on for generations.
The newly arrived immigrants had not attained such a level of appreciation for the natural world. Though they had never before seen a white-headed eagle, they were hostile to the myths and legends surrounding it. Thus began the almost immediate decline and near extinction of these ancient birds.
These colonialists and their descendants, with their sober businesslike imagination and their rather thuggish relationship to nature, shot eagles for sport and cut down their forests for profit, and dammed up the heroic salmon just because they could. The great predators of the sky had met the great predators of the land. Poisoned with lead shot and starving for lack of prey and unable to find the tallest heaviest trees for their gigantic nests, the bald eagles who had never confronted an enemy in all their ancient history, were suddenly beaten back by these deadly newcomers who worshipped the freedom to do as they pleased above everything else on earth.
Eventually, some of the conquerors had a change of heart and felt they should honor the vanquished bald eagle after all, if only because it was such a strong and majestic underling. So they made it the emblem of the United States of America and placed its imposing picture on dollar bills, quarters, and the Great Seal, all suitably important eternal things, though of course senseless and joyless to the great birds themselves. This terrestrial anguish for security and distinction seems to be a human thing manifesting mostly in the hoarding of wealth. The bald eagle tribe does not possess this anguish, preferring to fly far above fear.
But that was all a long time ago. Now, miraculously, a fluffy eaglet with a dusky brown head still too big for his gawky neck, peers down at the ground doves underneath his tree. He possesses neither knowledge nor interest in how extraordinary and distinguished people and their money are. Other lives preoccupy him. He has carefully observed the dainty little neighbors under his tree walking along picking up seeds of grass. He has ferreted out their secret nest on top of a nearly hidden rotting stump. He has seen how they obtain all their food from the ground. Blinking his transparent eyelids to keep away the clouds of no- see-ums around the nest, obsessively scratching under his wings at the itchy black juvenile feathers coming in, he sees four times farther away than the birdwatchers can even with their binoculars.
As he calmly focuses in on these doves bobbing their orange beaks, walking sedately on their short legs, play-fighting among the prickly pear cacti, he and his tribe are oblivious to those desperate statesmen trying to balance budgets ominously short of the very coins upon which his forbears’ face is minted.
After the thunderstorm has passed, the newest member of the bald eagle tribe is still safely tucked into the bottom of the nest among the bones and debris of past meals. Between the biting midges and the smelly fish tails and the restless scratching of their miserable demanding prince, his weary mother and father often fly out of the nest to an unused tree to get away from it all. The great horned owl has tremendous respect for the sharp beak and dangerous talons of these parents and wisely keeps away during their brief retreats. The stubborn little eaglet, his head on the rim of the damp nursery and entirely absorbed, simply peers and peers into his new world and sees everything, even the dove’s precious white egg hidden under a few twigs and pine needles. He never even notices he is alone in his nest.
Life in the center of Honeymoon Island is usually quiet and peaceful. On the coast waves pound the shoreline bringing in piles of broken sand dollars and bits of coral. But in the interior there is no excitement. Oh, every now and then there is a brief flurry among the Audubon people when the eaglet’s mother or father flies off. Perfectly at home in this tranquil and unhurried atmosphere, the earnest little eaglet watches his world intently, longing to know his place in it. He makes quiet progress without any fanfare. He never shows off. He has no self pity, no resentment. He practices flapping his wings and bouncing up and down while his parents look on with anxious satisfaction. Soon he will learn to hover briefly over the furthest edge of the bedraggled nursery.
Such solemn humble efforts in understanding this hazardous world make everything else around him, even the staid birdwatchers, seem childish. He will never comprehend the grand extravaganza of the society these still recently arrived newcomers with their cameras and walking sticks and bird books come from. But he is the pride and joy of the very, very ancient tribe of bald eagles and in a few years his heavy eyebrows will come down over his golden yellow eyes and, amidst the joyous manic shrieking of his relieved parents, he will unfold his wings and soar majestically into the sky far above our mundane lives so filled with quarters and half dollars and valuable stamps, heading for that warm powerful light that has always entranced him.
And all the benign creatures of Honeymoon Island will sense that something rare and triumphant is happening as the hot air thermals push the fearless ecstatic young prince so high above the earth that even his speck disappears from the binoculars of the dismayed birdwatcher and the keen eyes of the envious osprey, perhaps confirming what those original North Americans suspected all along: that the bald eagle’s head turns white because it flies so close to the sun.
Having descended from more recent immigrants, Joanie and I arrived in Florida a few years before this family of eagles. For some time our immediate neighbors have been the heron, egret, ibis, mockingbird, morning dove, blue jay and red cardinal. Some bathe daily in our two bird baths. But we live ten minutes away from Honeymoon Island and often visit to walk the Osprey Trail. The creatures who live there are our neighbors as well, though they are more aloof. We are happy to report that the dark brown eagle chick is now more than nine weeks old and is nearly as big as his parents. He will start flying out of the nest around the first week in May. His departure will leave an emptiness in our lives though we fully expect to find one of his feathers.
To order her book, On a Planet Sailing West”, go to http://www.jlblue.com/
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