The Bald Eagle Has Landed, and Wowed Me!

Oh Wow! Oh Double Wow! Oh My Gosh! And that’s pretty much all I could say. The event occurred on our beautiful Saturday last week, when all I wanted to do was sit in the sun and forget winter, and that winter had showed me in four times. Four Times! Good grief. Anyway, I was sitting there, enjoying that beautiful early-spring day, watching Darling Daughter work. Darling Daughter had decided to clean up the horse pasture. Numerous downed limbs, and a big bunch of old weeds, were limiting grass growth. She will not tolerate grass limitations, and she was working like a dog. I had made one small attempt at digging a garden, which turned out to be more like sinking in the mud. I gave up quickly and was taking a break in my favorite chair on the back porch, watching my bird population at the bird feeders. Someday I’ll relate the crazy antics of my nuthatch, who must be the clown of the bird world. Darling Daughter decided to take a break and joined me.

We must have been discussing the impossibility of doing anything in the swamped garden, when I saw the flash of black and white.

“Oh my gosh!” I interrupted Darling Daughter. “A huge bald eagle has just landed in the pasture.” Yep. Enormous mature bald eagle, with white head and tail, had landed. Darling Daughter and I ducked. Don’t know why. Bald eagle was half a football field away, and didn’t care at all what we were doing. Bald eagle was on a mission. That apparently pending parent bald eagle was on the hunt for nesting materials, and had decided those old round bales of hay in the horse pasture, which were pretty much picked over and flattened, contained the ideal nesting material. I confess. I was astounded.

That bald eagle attempted to grab claws full of that old, wet hay. It wasn’t easy, as anyone who has had to deal with that old stuff will know. It’s all matted, and wet, and muddy, and ugly, and baling twine, embedded in the nasty stuff, does not help by keeping it all tied down. Darling Daughter and I watched as bald eagle fought with the hay pile. Spreading wings which looked like at least 10 feet from wing tip to wing tip, that poor bald eagle hopped up and down, up and down, wings flapping frantically, just trying to loosen some old hay from the pile. I was sure she must have been working on a nest. We watched bald eagle struggle with that hay for a good 15 minutes.

And we weren’t the only ones watching. Our two old geldings were astounded also. They had been hanging out with Darling Daughter, their favorite person cause she feeds them, in the upper part of the pasture where she was working. But when the eagle landed, their attention turned to the eagle too. Heads up, ears pricked, those two old geldings didn’t seem to believe something so big had landed on their hay pile, not that they are interested anymore in that hay. So they watched intensely. Then Toby, Gorgeous Granddaughter’s horse, began to get a bit more interested. He began a slow but determined stroll toward bald eagle. It seemed he doesn’t like pasture intruders, according to Darling Daughter, and may have been on the way to try and evict the bald eagle.

“Oh no!” I whispered to Darling Daughter. “Toby’s going after the eagle. Stop him!” I could just see Toby attacking eagle, and eagle attacking back. That bald eagle made Toby, a full grown horse, look like a pony. I began to wonder how much our vet would charge to sew up bald eagle slashes in our horse. Darling Daughter didn’t move. Well, it was an extremely interesting scenario.

Bald eagle moved before Toby arrived, thank goodness. Bald eagle took off with two claws full of wet dirty nesting material. Toby just got disgusted, and walked off like he knew what he was doing. “That was incredible,” I told Darling Daughter. And this past week I’ve told everyone I know about our bald eagle adventure. I’ve wondered all week if bald eagle has returned for more nesting materials. Is she building her nest nearby, which is close to the Arkansas River? Does she have eggs, or babies already? Wow. Is it spring in Oklahoma? Yes! And I’m loving it.