Bald Eagles

How many times can you see a bald eagle before it stops being exciting? I only ask because I’m on the verge of losing count but I still get excited when I see them.

When I moved to Washington I’d never seen a bald eagle in the wild before. It was so exciting the first time: a real, live, bald eagle, just sitting there as if it was as normal as a seagull.

So I’ve been keeping track of them, and here’s all of the eagles I’ve seen:

Kelly took this picture of a bald eagle while we were waiting for the ferry to depart. She has two more if you click through.

1. Kelly and I were using the ferries across the Puget sound for the first time, and it was even one of the first times that we’d been down to the waterfront after we moved here. After we got our car loaded onto the ferry we started exploring the boat. When we got to the top when we saw a crowd of people at one end of the deck. We went to see what they were looking at, and there it was: a big bald eagle, sitting on a catwalk overlooking the water. It was too far away to be sure, but it looked as almost as big as a human sitting on that railing. I don’t know if the crowd was made up of newbies like us or if it’s just awesome every time.
2. There’s a floating bridge from the east side across Lake Washington into the city that we drive across a lot. On the Seattle-side of the bridge there’s a series of bays and smaller lakes and marshlands that are all interconnected and go back to the lake. One time we were heading into the city and driving through this marshy bay area by the university when Kelly saw the eagle fly and then land on a street light. She pointed it out to me just in time for me to turn and see the eagle sitting on the lamp post.
3. Over the summer our friend Matt came to visit. When we driving into the city for some good old-fashioned tourism, we saw an eagle sitting on a platform in the bay, right by where we had seen it the second time. Kelly and I both got really excited, and we chastised Matt for not getting as excited as us.
4. Since I’ve started my new job I take the bus across the floating bridge every day. One day as we were driving past the bay I realized that we’d seen bald eagles in the exact same place twice before. So I looked up from my book and sure enough, there was a bald eagle sitting on that same platform again! (It turns out the platform is a sculpture. Who knew? I thought it served some navigational purpose or something.)
5. Another trip into the city, driving with Kelly past the same bay. This time the eagle wasn’t sitting perched, but it was flying overhead. I was so excited this time that I kept repeating over and over: “A bald eagle flying! We just saw an eagle flying!”
6. A few weeks ago my brother Troy came to visit. As we were driving into the city we told him to look out for the place where we always see the bald eagles. It wasn’t in vain: we saw a bald eagle sitting on the same old platform. Troy did a slightly better job at being excited: he said, “oh, wow.”
7. Just the next day when Kelly and I were driving home from the airport after dropping Troy off, we saw an bald eagle flying overhead chasing a seagull! It was really exciting. It looked like the eagle was gaining on the gull, but I was driving and couldn’t see the rest of the action. Kelly said that the eagle got close and had it’s talons extended, but that it missed the mark and the gull got away. Too bad for the eagle, but lucky day for the seagull. Also, Kelly pointed out that “eagle” and “seagull” rhyme. That’s pretty exciting by itself.
8. Yesterday! On a light post at the same place by the bay driving into the city!

That’s all of them, but I’m sure there will continue to be more sightings. It’s getting hard to keep track of them since we’ve seen them in the same place several times. (Kelly’s even seen them there a few more times than me.) So, I just thought I’d share the excitement before I lost count. Of course, it’s probably a good thing that I write this post now so I can save you from a much longer post in event that I don’t ever stop counting!