Hidden Valley Rd, Burlington, ON. April 19th. 2021. I get much of my exercise hiking and exploring a steep-sided, flat-bottomed river valley not far from home. It has special appeal this week with emerging spring flowers and the way that you can watch the forest’s upper levels freshening to a haze of watery green.
Today, working my way up a faint bank-side track about twenty metres above the tumbling river, movement up ahead caught my attention: upstream, eye-level to me, was a Bald Eagle heading my way in purposeful flight. It was the sort of looking-straight-at-you image that belongs in a National Geographic centre spread: all-white head, yellow bill, black wings and white tail, it swept past me and left, turning and adjusting to follow the river’s course. I assumed it was scouting for an easy meal, an inattentive Musk Rat or Beaver perhaps, or a fish which they will just pluck from the water, not diving as an Osprey would. Whatever its purpose, for me it was a quick fly-past and gone, or so I thought – until I met up with it again.
This time it was a different kind of surprise. I was now on the flat lands of the valley floor and trying to focus on some mystery bird sounds, a Pileated Woodpecker maybe. I found a comfortable log for a seat and settled in to wait, something might come my way.
I wasn’t sure about the woodpecker but could hear a Red-tailed Hawk’s coarse scream, high overhead, it was indignant about something. And then came an answer, a responding thin, piping stutter that I knew meant Bald Eagle. A call that is perhaps the worst-matched bird sound ever: that the mighty arrow and olive-branch carrying symbol of the United States should speak in such a pipsqueak voice is pure irony. Perhaps the Red-tailed Hawk was goading the eagle to compare voices, to see who really rules the roost.
Perched high in the tops of a couple of budding Red Oaks were three Bald Eagles, one adult and two youngsters just a few branches away. I watched them for a long time and they did what Bald Eagles do more than anything, sit around and watch the world go by.
The presence of these three raises many questions, mostly around who belongs where and with whom. They may all be siblings with one old enough to have reached adult plumage. Or was this an adult with offspring from previous years? If so, where did they come from? Bald Eagles are starting to gain a toehold around this end of Lake Ontario and these are part of that dynamic expansion.