Not endangered anymore…and I can see why.

At the end of our trip to Alaska in June 2007, Mike and I stopped for a few days in the Seattle, WA, area where Mike’s cousin, Rick, lives. Rick took us northwest for a day trip, where we went island hopping via ferry. During our travels, we stopped at the northern part of Deception Pass State Park on Fidalgo Island, where we went for a walk.

There was a bald eagle perched at the top of a pine tree. Normally, this would have floored us, but we’d just come from 10 days in Alaska, where eagles are considered nuisance birds, like pigeons or seagulls. Still, it looked like a good opportunity to get a photo of an eagle doing sometime more interesting than waiting for the fishermen to dump their garbage. So I raised my camera, which (fortunately) had a 200 mm lens on it, focused, and waited for something interesting to happen.

The bird took off and I caught him in flight.

The photo isn’t perfect, but it is, by far, the nicest picture of a bald eagle I got while on vacation.

We saw a lot of bald eagles in captivity in Alaska. They were all injured birds that would never return to the wild. They were beautiful animals — quite large and very majestic looking. But those small, close-set eyes and sharp beak and claws were enough to remind anyone that these are birds of prey. Not a coincidence, I think, for the national bird of this country.

But I’m not complaining — it could have been worse. As you may know, Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be our national bird.