The first time I saw him, I thought, no, my eyes are fooling me. What I was seeing as a bald eagle was surely one of those vultures that have been populating central New Jersey in recent years. But this week, I saw him again, and this time there was no mistaking that profile, that wing span, those powerful talons. As I sat in morning rush hour traffic on Route One in Princeton, it WAS a bald eagle that was swooping low overhead. According to a 2004 article in the Princeton Packet (which I found using my usual keen web surfing skills) a nest near Lake Carnegie was, at that time, confirmed. Apparently, the eagle family has decided to stay.
It is a testament to the tenacity of nature to see such a magnificent bird swooping over what is becoming one of the worst commuting spots in central New Jersey. For once, I was grateful for a traffic pace so slow that I could actually take in the scenery around me. On the same morning I was treated to the sight of a crane balancing delicately on the edge of frozen lake ice. It was certainly a more refreshing thing to look at than at the woman in the car next to me who was actually reading a paperback book that she was balancing on her steering wheel. And it kept my eyes off the phalanx of tractor trailers clogging up the highway in front of me.
I don’t advocate sight-seeing behind the wheel as a general rule, we all know what happens when that line of traffic comes to a sudden stop in front of us. It’s just nice to know that sometimes, when you aren’t moving and the clock is slowly counting off how many minutes you are going to be late for work, that overhead, a bald eagle is soaring.
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