There are few times in a man’s life when he gets to witness the true poetry of the natural world. As we get caught up in the artificial trappings of the material things that we, as a society, have deemed necessary, we often lose sight of what truly matters. Simultaneously, as humans have managed to control our environment more and more, we’ve lost our ability to recognize its true beauty. It would seem the more we create, the more we lose.
I could live another 10 lifetimes and never get to see a performance such as that on that fateful evening. Although the rust of time had not yet stained my beard its characteristic salt-and-pepper hue, I was granted the wisdom to know it was a unique moment: as if all of Mother Earth’s players conspired to give us humble, weary travelers a performance that would yield admiration from the Bard himself.
After a long week afloat conducting surveys in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, I and my three companions all needed a break, and we certainly needed some personal space. A 25-foot vessel doesn’t offer much elbowroom for four grown folks. Nevertheless, we took full advantage of the near 24 hours of sunlight, running transects and recording every bird and mammal in a 100-meter radius as we chugged along at 7 knots.
We were in one of the last great places left on the globe, and that fact was not lost on us. Everywhere you looked you saw one of the most fantastic post cards you could imagine. We saw pods of orcas herd salmon just off of our stern, and black bears were visible on just about every shoreline. We saw Dall sheep above the treeline on the surrounding peaks, and rare birds seemingly came into view with every glance.
We finally had a refuge from our busy schedule, and there was one particular cove to which we’d retreat periodically. I can’t articulate what made this particular spot so spectacular; by Prince William Sound standards, it was fairly mundane. Just another spot where the sea is abruptly interrupted by spruce trees. But there was a voice present there, obscured from our consciousness by the babbling of the tidal creeks, that somehow spoke to our more primal selves.
Although I share initials with the late John James Audubon, I doubt I have the same understanding he had of the avian community. That said, I don’t think he’d ever bore witness to such a spectacle. Such a gathering had no precedent in my experiences, or those of my crew. I can still see it play out when I close my eyes.
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We anchored in the deep water and began ferrying ourselves to shore in our inflatable dingy. It was an idyllic afternoon, the sun’s rays shining down on us with the diffused intensity that only the Alaskan sun could produce. A couple of the field hands set about gathering berries: one of their favorite pastimes. I set about stringing up my five weight, as did the other tech, which was our favored pastime.
The chums were running, but weren’t snobbish when it came to salmon. As we slipped into our waders, we heard the cry of, “Yah bear! Hey bear!” disappear into the berry thicket. We slowly crept into the stream, stripping line as we went.
It was typical low tide salmon fishing. The kind of angling where you can’t really miss, even if you tried. We were throwing flies to fish with their dorsal fins exposed. Because of the low water, they were stacked like cordwood. If they didn’t hit on the first presentation, they would on the consecutive one. Just put it in front of them enough times that they got angry enough to attack the brazen intruder that we referred to as a hot bugger.
Just as we were getting lulled into a mild hypnosis by the pattern of cast, strip, hook, release, the silence was destroyed by a high-pitched shriek. My concentration was shattered, and my gaze shifted skyward just in time to see a bald eagle begin its procession from the island’s interior.
Just as he got overhead, he turned and started cartwheeling through the sky. Then, as if on cue, another eagle cried out for attention, and followed a similar flight path as the other.
This pattern repeated until there were no less than five of these regal beasts performing acrobatics in the airspace above us.
Maybe these winged harbingers of freedom could grasp the seemingly magnetic energy of this tidal creek. The same energy that drew us in seemed to call to them as well. There were more than a few nests on the limited acreage that this island consisted of. It was almost like they were compelled to gather here. And maybe they were. There was a certain air of the intangible present on this tiny isle.
If you ever hear the shrill cry of our national bird in person, you’ll never forget it. It’s part whistle, part howl; an unmistakable noise. Although it resembles other birds of prey, it has a certain intangible quality that leaves little doubt to the calls’ source. Although this call was somewhat commonplace in coastal Alaska, it never lost its majesty. There are certain animals that simply invoke your respect, and the bald eagle is certainly one of them.
Just when I thought the show was coming to a climax, I was rewarded with a pièce de résistance. Following the same creek the others had, two eagles streaked across the sky at an incredible speed, but it wasn’t their velocity that was most astonishing; it was the fact that they were interlocked. It would seem they were grasping each other’s talons, their bodies face-to-face as they waltzed through the bluebird sky. These two birds were performing maneuvers that would make the most experienced Blue Angel’s knuckles go white. All the while one was upside down, trading positions with each other as they paraded across the sky, gaining and losing altitude as the spectacle continued.
I have no idea how long this dance continued. It’s tough enough keeping track of time when the sun never moves, but time had been standing still for me. It could have been two minutes; it could have been 20; losing time, I believe it’s called. My entire being was caught up in the flights of fancy overhead.
I still don’t have good answers as to what those two were doing. Oftentimes the young of a species will spar with each other, but they didn’t look like fledglings to me, and the timing wasn’t quite right. I don’t imagine it was a mating display, as it was way too late in the season for that. A tiny part of me wants to pretend I was invited to the annual Eagles’ Ball, an exhibition to which few humans are ever summoned. The biologist in me knows this not to be true, but a little boyhood wishful thinking never hurt anyone.
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