In 2010 I lived in a residential Vancouver neighbourhood just like so many others. I went to work, came home, and generally just enjoyed life. But all that changed one Sunday when I bothered to look up as I was walking through a nearby parking lot that bordered a major roadway. There, in the trees was a most unlikely spectacle. Two gorgeous Bald Eagles sitting proudly on a nest.
I was dumbfounded for a few moments as I stared upwards in shock and tried to piece it all together. What were they doing there? What had posessed them to build in such an urban (and public) place?
That first day I watched for hours, and the same on the next day and the next week and the next month. Soon there were babies and my joy knew no bounds. No matter the weather I could usually be found spending every off hour at that nest, camera in hand. Unfortunately around that time, things took a turn for the worse for a friend of mine and I was forced to move away to help care for him.
When I returned to Vancouver some two years later I missed the 2013 nesting as I was super busy re-establishing myself. In 2014 I missed the first half of the season and finally returned to visit my beautiful friends. But the nest was not there, having been blown down a mere week previously. One chick had died and one had been rescued by a local group and eventually made it to maturity. The eagles managed to fledge on chick of the three they had that year and promptly moved their nest.
I was heartbroken. I had let life get the better of me and my eagles had been lost. I visited the new nest in the 2015 season but it just did not feel the same. It was unfamiliar to me, I had no connection to it and so I began to let go.
Until a random walk in a nearby park brought me full circle.
It was with the same feeling of shock that I looked up with the intent of mourning my lost eagles and saw a proud new nest crowning the old tree! And lo and behold peeking out from the branches, the head of a brooding eagle!
Taking a page out of one of my favorite bloggers books I fully intend to emulate the amazing Doc Ellen and follow these gorgeous creatures throughout the season.
As I wrote this I was sitting, camera in hand in the middle of the parking lot waiting for the male to bring lunch. Much to my surprise he appeared moments after I finished the majority of this post soaring high in the sky before disappearing into the sun. For this reason and the missing feather I have named him Icarus.
No lunch delivery today, but he happily traded with the gorgeous female who I have named Catherine in honor of a deceased friend who’s tale I may tell you another day. Here she is
Seeing these two moving around in their old haunt and brooding happily truly brought things full circle and showed me the importance of the little things
I lost my hearing, they lost their home. Now we’ve both come back to the place of our beginnings.
The Celebration Of Silence 