eagle

this morning the alarm went off at 5. funny thing is, we were all four already awake. the sky outside was a color that doesn't exist anywhere during the day, a little difficult to look at. 52 degrees. the dogs pretty much went right back to sleep, but the sweetie and i got ourselves into the car and drove three or four miles down to the east branch delaware.

it was cold enough to feel the air hit your insides when you breathe and i was surprised to find the water warmer than the air. we stood in the water and cast and reeled, cast and reeled. i've recently noticed i like fishing. it's not so much the catching part. the sweetie likes that. he catches them, too. but i like standing out in the water, looking around at the mountains and the rocks and all. i like the repetitive casting and reeling. i like the not talking and the sounds the birds and water make together. so while the sweetie focuses on reeling in the fish, i wander around, look at the sky, watch the tadpoles.

and then i saw it. "look! an eagle!" i yelled and pointed. the sweetie looked up. "that's not an eagle. that's a heron." oh. it had a white head. it had gray wings. it was big. and i wanted it to be an eagle. everyone around here blathers on about all the eagles they see all the time. like they're stray cats or something. although i know it isn't possible, i watch every day from my old lady rocking chair, expecting an eagle to come flying down the road. i already said i know it isn't possible. so the sweetie says it's not an eagle. and then two seconds later i yelled, "look! an eagle!" and he looked. and evidently (according to the sweetie, who tends toward factual information) while he looked i said about seventeen other sentences, each with the word "eagle" in it. it is an eagle. wow. that's really an eagle. it is an eagle, right? eagle. eagle.

it was. not more than a few seconds behind a great blue heron, it came sailing around the river bend and followed it upstream, right over us. and i was too stupefied to get my camera. i've never seen an eagle flying around in the wild before. it was certainly worth the early morning. we also saw two deer, one of which i thought was a bear. i am working on my animal identification skills.