Large Fierce Mammal

I recorded events purely with my mind, eye, and pen. This photograph from the internets (source: http://www.forwallpaper.com/wallpaper/attack-eagle-164108.html) is offered as a representation, albeit but a tiny snippet, of the primal splendour I witnessed.

Springtime is a season of many and varying complexions here in Nova Scotia, and one of the many reasons affecting all the seasons leading us to often remark that if you don’t find the weather to your liking, just wait a few minutes. Because of this, choosing one’s attire for the day is slightly complicated by what can easily be a 10 degree variance from dawn to mid-afternoon. This is nothing a savvy bushman can’t manage of course, but I bring the matter to your attention on this, my birthday, as a lead in to recounting an interesting meeting that occurred just yestermorn.

I had been conversing with Mrs. LFM as we went about our daily ablutions, and checking the time, announced my intention to sally forth a moment to sniff the wind before deciding how best to dress for the missions of the day. Moments later, I was stepping through the door into our yard which borders on a wide expanse of woodland, and a neighbouring cultivated field. No sooner had I both feet on the ground than I caught sight of a large Bird  through the Pine boughs ahead of me. It was descending in a manner that made me think it intended to alight in a nearby tree, and other than that it was clearly a Bird of Prey, I hadn’t yet seen enough of it to identify its species.

Then, in mere seconds, I saw a mature Bald Eagle sweep swiftly up above the trees, its eyes fixed on something on the ground to our mutual right. With two powerful strokes of its wings, it rapidly executed a climbing right turn, its eyes still fixed on something in the neighbouring field. Reaching the apex of its climb, the Eagle tucked its wings, extended its talons, and in total lethal silence descended with increasing speed toward an expanse of snow. Transfixed by the splendour of the Eagle, it was a mere yard from the ground before I caught a sudden movement in the periphery of my vision. A medium sized River Rat bolted across the snow only to be snatched up midway through its second bound, released of its life by a quick ripping strike of the Eagle’s beak that left a crimson streak upon the white backdrop, and carried forth without again touching the ground.

With powerful strokes of its wings that made its every move seem effortless, the Eagle climbed away looking in my direction, and then banked toward me, holding my eye as it approached. Just as it was about to pass over me, it appeared to extend the limp Rat in its talons, as though it mattered to him that I saw it.

I cheered! The visceral explosion of joy and kinship in my heart at that moment cannot be explained in words, but I know that you will understand Goode Reader!

As I once wrote, “For this to be experienced I needed to be exactly where and when I was. So simple and yet so profound.”

And to paraphrase something I also put here a bit more than a year ago:

So what does it all mean? For me, every time I am gifted with such a moment, I feel honoured in a way that can only come from sharing it in time with a fellow creature of Nature, and the thrill I speak of can only come from an unscripted and decidedly un-coincidental encounter demanding that its participants converge under circumstances most will find impossible to believe. Impossible because it never seems to happen to them. Indeed, these events are of a kind that would never have happened if you even paused to hike up your pants, check your email, or if I had spent even an extra minute talking to my beloved Wife.

So …

I believe they happen to me because I’ve spent all of my life up to now learning to be the best animal – the best creature of Nature – I can be. My quest is far from finished, and I have no intention of stopping. I hold the World of Nature above the artificially built “reality” of human society, and in so doing, my relationship with my fellow Humans is enhanced.

All this being said, let me now give thanks to you, most splendid and perfect Eagle, who came yesterday to bring the gift of your primal joy, and likewise to all I name Friend as I – and you – know the meaning of the word. The happiness of my birthday to you all, and to my enemies, may you come to your senses or be cursed to never find what I have found.