Each spring, thousands of alewives make the journey up the the fish ladder from the River to the Lake, where they will then spawn. When they're running, the fish swim upstream, having been born *knowing* just what to do. It sounds completely magical to me. I've lived here my whole life, but this is something I've never seen.
Yesterday, we took a little road trip up the coast to Damariscotta to try and catch the running of the alewives, having heard they were running earlier in the week. Do you see what we saw? Yeah...not much in the way of fish. A few little handfuls of fish - not the thousands jumping about that we had thought we'd see. I think the cold temperatures this week have kept them away - perhaps later in the week they'll be running again.
So we were just saying "oh, well" and casually starting to make our way back to the car, when I heard an excited, "Mama!!". It's a bald eagle! And since just two hours earlier in the day, he had told me he wanted to see a bald eagle today, I assumed he just had it on the brain. "No, Mama, it's bigger than a crow!" (that cracks me up). But I should know better than to question one of my kids about a bird - of course, it was a bald eagle.
Apparently, we weren't the only ones looking for the fish - in our afternoon visit there we watched the bald eagle for an hour as it moved about in the trees closeby, and then saw pairs of osprey, followed by other birds of prey we just don't see everday. On the way home, we were pleasantly surprised once again to find a bald eagle nesting. Right in the middle of a very sweet coastal town village, intending to watch fish on their journey, we were instead, the happy guests of a magical show of soaring, flying and dancing by some truly amazing creatures. There are few moments where all five of us are 'still' at the same time (we need a few more years on us for that), but there were moments yesterday that felt suspended in time, as even the 1 year old among us seemed to be fullly aware and in awe of the magic we were watching. The long car ride home was a rare quiet one - with a few 'wow's' shared here and there.
There's so much magic out there to witness, isn't there? I hope your weekend includes a small moment of the magic of the natural world around you. I'll see you on Monday!
