Hearts Full of Gratitude and Praise

(Let’s roll the clock back a week. The following is a compilation of events and times that illustrate the joys and wonders of eagle watching.)

The crisp early morning air is alive with glittering ice crystals and shimmering promise as we begin our quick visit to Eastwood. It is Thanksgiving morning, 2017, and the awakening world around us is just now brushing the sleep from its eyes.

As we make the short ride to the park our conversation lingers on thoughts of the holiday. The word “thanksgiving” overflows with memories of wonderful feasts shared with loved ones over the years and the close, enduring bonds of companionship that forever link us together in unspoken mutual support and respect. Even those long-departed souls are still somehow closer during the holidays. The sweet memory of their smile, their laughter and their embrace flicker in our hearts like candles on our Thanksgiving table and bring light and joy into our homes once again. They are almost touchable at times and their presence in our hearts can snatch us away to places that were once ours together, bringing a smile to our lips and tears to our eyes. (Isn’t it interesting how often smiles are accompanied by tears?) We speak of the plans for the day and of those who will share the meal with us this year. The anticipation of what lies just a few hours away is palpable. The list of the yet unfinished tasks that must be completed before today’s meal is long but we have taken a short break from those demands to invest a bit of the day in hopes of seeing an eagle or two.

As we near the park our conversation changes to the subject of our search. Jim and Hope are finally together again. After much (apparently unwarranted) concern our local love birds are in their courting mode. They spend the day working on their nest, dancing together in the sky or contentedly perched side by side atop a suitable tree. That is how we hope to find them this morning.

The sun is a bit higher in the sky as we turn slowly into Eastwood. Across the road in the well field we notice a distant Whitetail buck encouraging a younger buck to stay a bit farther way from his doe.

We smile. The night is full of adventure and adventurers and their activity is just now winding down as ours begins.

We creep down the long, straight, entrance road at a little more than an idle as we search the familiar trees for large bodies with 7,000 feathers. Many of the trees are like old friends as well. The large sycamore on the right is where the Red-tailed Hawk loves to hunt and several years ago the sycamore on our left was a favorite perch of a visiting juvenile Bald Eagle. The small trees near the bottom of the short hill are commonly filled with Eastern Bluebirds and an occasional Eastern Meadowlark. And here, on the left, is all that remains of what was once a Pileated Woodpecker’s tree. Eventually we make our way to the west terminus of the roadway. The morning sun is now crowning the treetops like a brilliant gemstone giving a welcomed warmth to the otherwise biting air.

We pause for a moment to acknowledge that we are now where the young eagles gather! Hopefully in just a week or two, juvenile and sub-adult eagles will begin their brief annual visit to this end of the lake, adorning the treetops, frolicking in the skies and standing together on the ice. There were as many as a dozen one day last year!

They will gather here until Jim chases them away as the new nesting season draws near.

As we turn and head back towards the entrance we spot a Belted Kingfisher fishing from the top of one of the newly installed fishing line recycling stations at the edge of the lagoon.

(I am honored that Five River MetroParks is using one of my images of an entangled Great Blue Heron to encourage fishermen to properly dispose of unwanted line and I hope that these receptacles, that are now popping up throughout the park system, will be greatly used.)

As we gradually make our way east along the lakeshore we pass under another familiar tree. This is the tree where two years and one week ago a young, rehabilitated Bald Eagle had perched for 23 hours after being released back into the wild.

Eventually hunger and the need for companionship encouraged the youngster to fly. (We chuckle when you comment that these trees are not really trees at all but more like pages in a photo album.)

Just a bit further east we notice an unusual form across the now busy road and in the distant tree tops of the well field. The form is sillohetted in the morning sky.

It stands upright like an eagle and it is high enough in the tree to be Jim or Hope but it is just too large. Puzzled by this object we drive a bit more quickly to the east end of the lake for a different vantage point. There we relocate the object and our questions are answered as our suspicions are confirmed. It is not an eagle. It is two eagles!

What we were seeing through the trees were Jim and Hope perched nearly side by side with one slightly higher that the other making it appear as if we were seeing one very tall bird. Success!

But the steady stream of traffic on Harshman Road all but blocks our view of the far off pair so now we drive even more quickly to the entrance at Harshman Road, hoping for a less obstructed view. We park the car, grab our cameras, locate the birds, find a point where the foreground trees are less of a nuisance, begin to focus carefully on the distant eagles in the hazy sunlight and snap the shutter… just as this happens.

Some days are like that.

We watch as the second eagle follows its mate and after a few shivering minutes we realize that they have perched somewhere out of sight. But they are together on this Thanksgiving morning and for that we are thankful.

With a busy day ahead of us we retrace the road back to the demands of the day. The warmth of the car is comforting but it cannot compare to the warmth of our hearts. We have so much to be thankful for: the cherished memories of loved ones long gone, the promise of time with the precious loved ones we have now, the beauty of creation, the wonders of nature, time, opportunities… and the loving God who provides blessing upon blessing. We may not have been able to catch a decent glimpse of an eagle this morning but as we drive down the road we ponder the past hour together and think of the day ahead when suddenly, outside the car window, something like this happens…

and we enter into the holiday season with hearts full of gratitude and praise!