The Eagle and the Eclipse

Gathering strength and moving beyond

I stepped on to the foot bridge to cross Issaqauh Creek on my morning walk and a bald eagle glided across my path, twenty feet away and ten feet above. It was powerful, silent, and enormous. The creek is known for salmon, but I had never seen an eagle here before. They live in pairs in the trees overlooking the lake, where the creek empties its cold water two miles to the north. When the salmon run up the creek every September, following their spawning instinct and swimming against the current to lay their eggs and die, the eagles stay by the lake. Maybe this eagle had seen something the others had missed and was moving into the neighborhood to make a home.