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Eagle Perched on Power Pole

Published 8:01 am Wednesday, March 30, 2016

By Richard Stokes

Scot Tiernan, a volunteer with the Juneau Raptor Center, tries to sneak up on a juvenile bald eagle at the Wayside Park on Channel Drive in June 2013. Center volunteers received a call that the bird was unable to fly and was laying on the park grass. After a few attempts to catch the bird with volunteer Pat Bock, the eagle flew off. Tiernan said that it was a good sign that the eagle flew off but that it sometimes can take a week to catch a sick bird.
Scot Tiernan, a volunteer with the Juneau Raptor Center, tries to sneak up on a juvenile bald eagle at the Wayside Park on Channel Drive in June 2013. Center volunteers received a call that the bird was unable to fly and was laying on the park grass. After a few attempts to catch the bird with volunteer Pat Bock, the eagle flew off. Tiernan said that it was a good sign that the eagle flew off but that it sometimes can take a week to catch a sick bird.

A silhouette against

gray winter sky,

his tucked-tight wings

shed the cold drizzle.

It’s difficult just now

to imagine him in sunlight,

head and tail glistening white

as he glides on thermals up and up

and up against a spruce backdrop.

But I know he will again soar

that pain and hurt can pass,

change like weather.

The sun will return and

we can again soar.

• Richard Stokes, a Juneau resident since 1971, writes about nature, which he loves, and aging, which he is doing.

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