Published: October 21, 2024

Eagle sits guarding the nest at the edge of the marsh. (Photo: © Mark Seth Lender)

Rise early in the morning and head out to a nearby national wildlife refuge, and you’ve got a good shot of being rewarded with the sights and sounds of all kinds of birds. And on this birdwatching trip, you might be watched back.

Nothing I see in nature bores me because even what can be called “the same,” is never the same. I’ve seen bald eagles many times, all over the North America, literally coast to coast. They always grab my attention. I love the natural world. And I am always glad to see bald eagles. But the exchange described here, eye to eye and the contact, the recognition it implies, that was something else.

Never name and dismiss. Never say “Eagle,” and think you are done with it.

As to the eagle of this story, he and his mate live on the edge of the Salt Marsh Unit of the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge. Last fall, I saw him doing something I did not know eagles could do: Hover. He was over the marsh, just above the Menunkatesuck River hunting for fish. I never saw him plunge, a 3rd year herring gull came along and chased him out. The relationship of herring gulls and bald eagles depends on who’s on top – literally. The gulls take off when they see an eagle to put distance, and height, between themselves and this apex predator. Here the eagle has the “upper hand.” But when the eagle is low, and the gulls manage to get over the eagle, well, Turnabout is Fair Play.

The National Wildlife Refuge System is quite literally, Nature Next Door. Nowhere in this country are you more than a tank of gas round trip from a National Wildlife Refuge, and for most of us much closer than that.

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