Early this morning I went on a little insomniac tour of the neighborhood here in Port Townsend, in the dark.
Just getting out door, I heard the loud call of a Bald Eagle nearby. Eagle's nest in a patch of tall firs close to the house here, but have been absent for the Summer, as they were last year. I'm not sure where they're off to in late summer - better fishing grounds I suppose - but they do seem to clear out of here for a few months. So it was neat to hear they were back. Or at least one was - have to check out their roost tree in the daylight today.
Whenever I hear an Eagle call, I go back in time to when I first heard an Eagle call. That was on a record. When I was a kid my parents bought me a two volume set of National Geographic's Birds of North America, which I still have. In the back pocket of those volumes were these neat little funky vinyl records in a ring-binder - the first, and actually only, bird recordings I've ever had , until the Internet was invented.
Anyhoo, I thought it was amusing, hearing that tinny sort of Eagle call recording, how twerpy it sounded. "Sounds like a little sparrow!" I thought. What didn't come across on the little vinyl record was the volume. Eagles are incredibly loud! Like the one this morning in the dark.
Back when I was a young birdwatcher, there were a whole lot less Bald Eagles, Ospreys, Peregrine Falcons, Brown Pelicans, etc. around. When you might be despairing that things just can't ever change for the better, remember Rachel Carson, who wrote the book "Silent Spring" in 1962, about pesticide abuse. DDT was banned in 1972, and now we have lot's more of the Top of the Food Chain birds I noted above. Now you can hear an Eagle yourself, even right in the city.
Just about back to the house, still in the dark, a Barn Owl called loudly. That was pretty cool.
Jeff Gibsonwalking it off in the dark, inPort Townsend Wa