I’ve been researching Bald Eagles for a year or so now. We have a pair of them that nest about 1700 feet from our house. We watch them almost every day. It is an interesting relationship. We can’t exactly call them our friends although we feel a friendly disposition towards them. We don’t think of them in anyway as pets, although we sometimes talk to them in those funny voices like you are talking to your dog. We even say hello to them when they are within earshot. And we certainly don’t relate to them as a falconer would to their captive raptor, like the Mongolians that fly Golden Eagles to hunt or exhibit.
For the moment, I don’t have a precise description of our relationship with our pair, which we call Edward and Abby. How we chose those names is another story and that will be in the book I’m working on, but yes, we did give them human names.
Seems like that is a pretty natural thing for us humans to do. I’m not judging anyone who does it or is against it, just saying it is a human thing to do, especially these days when we are so close to our animal companions.
My wife just passed on the sad news to me that the female from the Big Bear nest in Southern California just died and I felt that zing go through my neck and brain like when you hit your funny bone in your elbow and it goes through you with an electric jolt. It’s a sad feeling I’m speaking of. And we get it for others that have become important to us for whatever reason.
It’s sort of the beginning of grief and the recovery from grief which is called bereavement. We’ve never met Jackie in person of course, but our story has been bound in with hers because of the outpouring of good wishes for her as she fell ill about 3 weeks ago and then the ties that bind her to our pair of Eagles here at Holmes Lake. We even find ourselves worrying for these two and how well they are doing.
There are over 50 Bald Eagle nest cameras that are operating in this country. I’m still trying to understand it but there is an unusual and outsized level of interest and care in these creatures, beloved creatures in fact. I like that. I like being a part of that community that cares so much for these birds. It makes me want to work harder at seeing that they have a high quality of life. They can live 15 to 20 years in the wild and even longer. I’m afraid that Jackie didn’t get that chance to live out her full life. I don’t know why. I’m not sure anybody knows why, yet at least. But these treasured birds need an answer and so do we. As we help them to live better lives, I’m confident that we will all have our lives improved. RIP Jackie. Godspeed to her partner, Shadow.