bald eagle plunging

bald eagle plunging

talons into the river,

clutching a brook trout

As we drift down the Upper Iowa River, we glimpse several bald eagles flying downstream. One of them plunges into the river and snags a brook trout with its talons, grasping the slippery fish with the spicules on its toes. What an amazing sight! Dan tells us about a friend of his in Alaska who watched an eagle dive into the water and disappear, apparently pulled under by a large salmon. Eagles are strong swimmers, but sometimes they do drown. Another eagle flies off, mysteriously trailing a sprig of black walnut leaves in its talons. It almost looks like the image of the bald eagle on the national seal, clutching an olive branch with one claw and arrows in the other. We startle another large bird from the low trees along the river's edge, but this one does not have the white head and tail of an adult bald eagle. When it lands in a tall dead tree we can tell from its dark brown plumage and nearly black bill that it is a juvenile eagle. In a few years the young eagle's head and tail will gradually turn white and its beak yellow. Eagles are long-lived birds, up to 30 years in the wild. As raptors, they eat many kinds of creatures, both live and dead, but their favorite prey is fish, so they are usually found near water. However, I have seen one sitting in a tree just up the road from our home, with the nearest river miles away. 

Mississippi ice

Mississippi ice

half gone – bald eagles soaring

and diving for fish

A few miles from home we see a pair of bald eagles right by the road. The one sitting on a fence post flaps its wings, each as long as the bird is tall, but does not fly away. The other, standing on some small prey, just gives us the eagle eye. At the Mississippi River in Burlington we see many eagles by the beautiful new bridge built after the Great Flood of 1993, when water rose to the bed of the old bridge and the auditorium looked like an island in the river. Now the river is half free of ice. Some eagles sit on the ice, others are soaring and diving for fish, so striking with their white head and tail, black body and wings.

bald eagle watching

bald eagle watching

movement in the snow, the road,

takes flight when I stop

The wild turkeys are in the corn field again, though just one small group close to the road. Further on, across from the little county park with its tall pine trees, I spot a large bird in a bare tree right by the road. I slow down, thinking it must be a red-tailed hawk, but as I get closer I see the white head and tail, a bald eagle! In years past, we had to drive clear over to the Mississippi River to see them. Now they’re just down the road from home. I pull over and watch as the eagle watches trucks passing by, one van pulling out of the driveway next to the tree. But when I turn around and come back for a closer look, the eagle takes flight, swooping with outspread wings over the grove of pines.