There is a bald eagle that keeps watch over our pastures. This time of year, it is always there—watching, observing, waiting.
To one who rarely sees, they appear majestic, powerful, regal. The longer you are around them—you learn.
Eagles are lazy. They are scavengers and opportunists and even with their size, when confronted, often give way when trying to run off a hawk—who seem to have friends when in need, eagles not so much.
The eagle arrives this year in keeping watch and waits as our herd gives birth. Calf after calf, they enter into the world. The eagle keeps watch, taking census. If a mother does not eat her afterbirth, the eagle quickly does. If a calf is born still, it is turned inside out by talon and beak and made quick a skeleton picked clean.
If a mother is young, naive, unprotective, or indifferent—the eagle swoops, rests beside the babe, resting if it is known or minded. If not, it quickly splits the underbelly and eats it right there. Only then, if mother should then notice mind and then be stirred in the latent maternal instinct of protection, do the eagles work together. One flies away as mother chases as friends swoop in, continuing devour of an innocent made carrion. They run the mother to exhaustion, and when she quits, they finish eating the child before her eyes. This, I’ve witnessed all firsthand.
I do not like eagles. They are ugly creatures when seen and learned beyond first distant vision and novelty. They are the perfect modern federal-American emblem.