Bald Eagles

For most of my life I've never seen a bald eagle in the wild. This despite a childhood of camping vacations with my family. We went to the Ozarks, the Appalachian Mountains, the Rockies. Lot's of places where one would expect to see bald eagles. Those vacations more or less ended in the mid 1980s.

Afterwards my best opportunity would have been on the rare visits to Quincy, IL and Hannibal, MO, where my family is from. The route we took crossed the Illinois River near a spot a mating pair of eagles lived. Never, ever saw one.

Then two years ago I was in Seattle and I saw one over Pugent Sound while crossing it on a ferry. This weekend I was visiting Mom in St. Paul, MN. (some pics to follow once I get them loaded to FLICKR). On Saturday we were in Stillwater, an old river town along the St. Croix river. There was an eagle circling on the Wisconsin side of the river. After breakfast Sunday we went down to the Mississippi River. Again there was a bald eagle circling over head. On the trip home we took I35 south to I90 and I90 back to Chicago. As we crossed the Mississippi at La Crosse there was another eagle circling.

Now my limited experience is far from any kind of scientific evidence but just one person's observation that the efforts to protect endangered species can and does work.