41 ~ Equinox, equilibrium, and glad tidings of eagles

Photo by Jerry Davis, March 17, 2021

Welcome to spring, all!  It’s been a long, difficult Covid slog of a winter for many of us, and may today’s turn of the spring equinox bring some comfort and hope.

I have an encouraging update about the local Bald Eagles.  In parallel with spring’s arrival of spring, the news about them has turned toward something brighter. For those who don’t know the background, in late January I posted about a weakened adult male Bald Eagle that my housemate Jeff and I rescued – temporarily.  It subsequently died of lead poisoning, and it seemed likely it was the ‘father’ of the nest near the house (see posts #35 and #36). 

If so, this wouldn’t be good, of course, for the prospects of the nest this spring.  And losing the male from a resident pair may pose a somewhat more nettlesome problem than losing the female. I know from my studies of Ospreys in northern Michigan and the New Jersey salt marshes that it’s the male Osprey that establishes a territory and a nest site, and then attracts a female to settle down there with him. Given their ecological similarities, it’s likely the same pattern with Bald Eagles. Consequently, if a male eagle should find himself suddenly a widower, he’d just repeat the natural process of attracting a new female to the nest site.  But if the nest’s female loses her man… well, you see the complication.

For weeks my neighbor Jerry and I have been keeping an eye on the nest.  In February, on multiple occasions, we saw two eagles tending to the nest – so we thought that perhaps the dead male wasn’t the one from this pair.  But as February turned to March, and early March to mid-March, no one settled down to incubation (typically, eagles have eggs in the nest by late February – have to start early, since it takes so long to grow an eagle).  Last week, I checked the nest a few times, and now no longer even saw an eagle tending to it.  Too late now, done deal, I thought – this will be a spring without eaglets for the first time since I moved in here more than eight years ago. 

Then last Tuesday, among the vestiges of snow from the latest blast of winter, there it was, like a miracle:  the white head of an eagle poking just above the rim of the nest, hunkered in incubation posture!  Houston, the eagle has laid!!  I can’t tell you what a sense of hope and possibility – and a reminder to keep the faith – this gave me.

I’m pretty sure I know what happened – the unfortunate male that died this winter was the male from the nest.  The female then bonded with a new male, but of course all that Match.comming, dating and then courtship with right one takes time. She made it, but she and her new beau are now weeks behind in the nesting cycle. Can their family make it yet this year?  We’ll see.  I learned recently that a friend, Melissa, has been assigned by the Madison Audubon Society to monitor this particular nest, which will help keep us supplied with progress updates. 

It was a tough winter of loss for the eagles.  May we hold their renewal despite their loss, on the threshold of spring, as a metaphor for us all as we slowly emerge, inshallah, from the pandemic. 

Perhaps step outside today, take a full breath of the (official) spring air, and feel the hope and renewal infuse your cells.