I would not consider myself a bird watcher in an official or unofficial sense. I know very little about the various species of birds, their behaviors or their habitats.
Like most people, I have at least some recollection of what I learned about birds many years ago in public school, and I can recognize certain ones of distinct color based on frequent sightings over the years — cardinals, blue jays, mockingbirds, robins, crows and the Texas roadside favorite, vultures, or buzzards as most of us in the South call them.
However, I enjoy sitting on my deck, especially in the early mornings, observing the many birds that inhabit my back yard, including the cranes and various water fowl that are often found on lakes.
The martins have returned to my neighbors' tri-level martin "condo," and they're fun to watch darting across the water and back to their nests.
But our attention most recently has been on a bald eagle that appears to nest somewhere in the woods on the east side of Lake Nacogdoches, across the water from our home.
We've seen it perched fairly often on dead trees about 100 yards north of Cambridge Bay subdivision, and we assume that a nest is nearby.
As we boat ride across the lake in the early evenings and approach its territory for a closer look, we watch it take flight, perhaps to avoid any remote possibility of human contact, or merely to fish for an evening meal.
Armed with some pretty strong binoculars, we've gotten a few fairly close glimpses of the magnificent bird, but not as close as we would like.
As I have mentioned before in this column, we have a tendency to leave our deck doors open so our dogs can roam in an out. Lucky and Lady love sunning on the deck, overlooking the lake that they think is all their own back yard.
Early one morning last week, as I was drinking coffee and tuning in to "Good Morning America" on the TV, I heard a distinct sound coming from the other side of the open deck doors.
A high-pitched shrill that I thought I recognized caused me to jump up from my comfortable chair and run out onto the deck.
At that moment, the eagle was gliding over our boathouse, only about 50 yards away from me, its loud, shrill vocalization as if to greet me good morning ... an amazing sight.
I have since conducted some Internet research on bald eagles, and what I have found is fascinating. There is a wealth of information at www.baldeagleinfo.com. At this site, you will learn about the bird's history, it's description, feeding habits and migration patterns. Various myths and legends associated with this mighty bird are also outlined. For example, Native North Americans believed the thunderbird, a mythical super eagle, was responsible for creating thunder and lightning by beating its wings. The Pawnee believed the eagle to be a symbol of fertility because they build large nests high off the ground and valiantly protect their young. And, the Aztecs and related tribes established in the valleys of Mexico, revered the eagle as a strong symbol, with feathers used by that society's elite.
The Web site also posts this quotation:
"Above all other birds, it is the soaring eagle, with its size and weight, that gives the most abiding impression of power and purpose in the air. It advances solidly like a great ship cleaving the swells and thrusting aside the smaller waves. It sails directly where lesser birds are rocked and tilted by the air currents."
— Edwin Way Teale, "Bird of Freedom," Atlantic Monthly, 1957
... an insightful observation.
