My Guilty Pleasure

For the past few days I've been mesmerized by a bird...well, four and a half birds really. I've got the Duke Eagle Cam up and running all the time on my desk-top computer. It's a live feed from high up in a sycamore tree at their research facility in Hillsborough, NJ. This year the nesting pair of eagles, who mate for life btw with no pre-nups, laid their first egg in the nest on February 28th. This was followed, at three day intervals, by two more eggs. When I started tuning in to this miraculous event there were two baby hatchlings, all grey and woobly, with one egg left to hatch. I saw the papa eagle swoop in with a fish in its talons and proceed to feed on it while it was still breathing (yes, I know fish don't breathe but this one was moving its gills). I saw the mama Eagle gently roll the egg around and step off the nest to feed ever so carefully both babies. I got all mushy and cooed to myself over this amazing bit of technology. Mere minutes turned to hours of eagle gazing.

It brought back memories of the spring when a Robin made its nest right outside my bedroom window in NJ. Backyard ornithologist that I am, I loved to see the Great Blue Heron swing over our house at dawn on his way to breakfast in our tributary. Catching a glimpse of Egrets nesting in the trees around a pond on our street was always a show-stopper on my daily dog walk. Listening to the bird's cacophony when our backyard huckleberry tree ripened was the harbinger of Spring. But this year was the year my son was getting ready to leave for college. So I kept an eye on the comings and goings of this Robin pair. Finally, the last little baby robin was left alone in the nest. I'd watched its nest mates hopping around the branches, testing their wings, only to fly into the woods. The last baby was crying for its mama. I was getting desperate. Finally one morning, he jumped onto the lawn and proceeded to hop over to the woods. At last he flew up into a tree. I found myself crying with joy and relief. Because very soon, we'd be packing up our son the future Rock Star, our last child, for his college adventure.

Just got an email from a cousin who said she's worried, "The Eagle looks cold." I've turned so many friends and relatives onto the Eagle Cam, I'm afraid we'll overload its circuits! I'm concerned about the third egg. It should have hatched a couple of days ago, and now I can't see it. Of course I didn't like to see the first hatchling getting more food than the little second one, and being beak-bonked by its bigger nest mate too. But that seems to have evened out, the mama bird makes a point of leaning over the bigger first-born to feed its smaller baby equally. A living and breathing lesson in Darwinism, maybe the third egg will hatch, or maybe she's pushed it out already as nonviable.

After this past week, and the news stories about the GOP holding our budget ransom with riders about de-funding Planned Parenthood, I was happy to zone out on the Eagle Cam. After all, Roe vs Wade happened in 1973...almost forty years ago. And the morning-after pill (emergency contraception) has cut down significantly on the number of abortions performed in this country. If these ideological zealots can't get it into their heads that we American women have the right and freedom to choose what we can do with our own bodies, well maybe they should be watching the Eagle Cam too!
http://www.dukefarms.org/Education/Eagle-Cam/