I went out on the beach this morning for a short walk with Chloe the psycho poodle. Right away I saw one bald eagle and then another, both cruising the ragged edge of ice and open water. The eagles returned, talons empty, to a perch in one tree and then another in the dunes.
The fresh Lake Superior ice was groaning under the breeze and warming morning air. I love this sound. I used to think ice noises were most like whale calls. But what I heard today was almost the same sound as the squeaking unmelodic call of a bald eagle.
For a few moments, walking down the beach, I had it in stereo. The ice gro-moaning on my left, the eagles squa-squeaking on my right. Oh, and the bass boost of the dumb dog's paws padding on the ice mounds, dragging me forward.
Then some scampy Jack Russell terrier came along and there was much barking. And the eagles headed off somewhere to find dead things. And it was back to the office. But the eagle and ice still echo in my ears.
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5 comments:
You are really a great writer, you know that??
This is just ...extremely cool!
You know, I pride myself in finding different words to disparage our poodle. Plus I think I have a talent for stringing together consonants to make new sound-words.
I understand from apparently reliable sources that there are many dead things to be found around Lake Superior for the Bald eagle to find.
It might could be an interesting literary conceit to work a Bald eagle into each chapter of a book: "the Bald Eagle leapt into the still air above the derelict Mackinaw boat as they approached," or "the eagles formed a shifting monochromatic cloud around the object on the beach...."
I'm just saying.
You know, if only bald eagles were really bald, like turkey vultures, then the whole dead and rotting thing could go even further. Nothing like sticking your craw into a corpse...erp, it's lunch time and I don't want to spoil my appetite.
Your talk of ice reminds me of the ice walk on Superior we took with you at Sugarloaf several years ago.
By the way, I've linked with your site on my travel blog Road Writer
http://berylsbissell.blogspot.com
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