We tell visitors to look for a golf ball in the trees when they are looking for an eagle. That's a bald eagle's head; attached to it you'll find the rest of the bird.

I live on a hill and from one side of the house I look out and up onto a densely wooded mountainside perhaps a quarter mile away. Today I saw something I didn't know was out there, an eagle's nest. Looking out my window this morning I saw a larger than usual patch of white in the trees.

Upon fetching my binoculars I found it was a pair of eagles. One was perched a little higher than his mate, who was calming grooming herself, and he sat there, moving his head alertly in all directions. From time to time he lowered his head and picked up sticks and laid them down again. Then he raised his head and his throat pulsing, gave a defiant, territorial cry, silent to me at this distance and with my window closed, for all the world like a wolf howling. He was one happy camper.

It is spring.

Ebbie