Eagle sighting

Yesterday was unseasonably warm for Thanksgiving Day; in fact, it was a marvelous day, with a sunny sky and temperatures in the 50s. It was so nice that the kids and I retired to the back yard to play a little football. We were throwing the ball around when suddenly my daughter Maria exclaimed, "Hey Dad! Look! What is that bird? Is that a bald eagle?" High overhead we saw the unmistakable figure of a young American Bald Eagle, probably 175-200 feet overhead, soaring right over my property.

I turned to Maria and said, "Maria, you're right, that's a bald eagle! Ben, look!" Ben looked up and saw it, too. It was pretty neat. I had only seen one once before, soaring over the Mississippi River north of town. Eagles are incredibly majestic in flight and this eagle was no exception.

While you don't expect to see eagles flying over an inner-ring suburb, times are changing and the eagles are making a strong comeback from their status as an endangered species back in the 1970s. I grew up in a place where you rarely see wild animals, excepting the ubiquitous squirrels and chipmunks that live in the city. But in our yard, it is not unusual to see a small flock of ducks waddling around. Nature's creatures have learned to co-exist in the urban environment and that gives me a lot of hope. If ducks and eagles can adapt, we should be able to as well.