The Eagles Have Landed………..

When I moved back to the area six years ago I stayed with friends for several months an hour away from my place of work. Needing a place to deposit my money, I found a US Bank we used years ago. The bank was close, convenient, had branches in Kansas and a friend of mine who works for them. After signing on the dotted line, I found the closest branches to where I wanted to live permanently were 8-10 miles away. Since distance is not as important as how long it takes to get anywhere in the Chicago metropolitan area, I began a search for the most direct drive in the shortest amount of time.

My favorite route is north on Randall Road to the Meier’s US Bank branch in Geneva. There is a long stretch of fields and woods with a stream from the Mooseheart/Orchard Road intersection to the Batavia Main Street intersection. This piece of road is very calming to a Kansas girl making her home in Illinois. A bonus, this particular Meier’s grocery is north of Barnes and Noble in the Geneva Commons shopping area and south of a Costco.

Last April we joined Costco and between the bank runs, Costco trips and my Barnes and Nobel dates with myself we were up and down Randall Road quite a bit. We started noticing groups of cars at the curve where the Mooseheart field turns into the Mooseheart woods. The line of cars was reminiscent of a trip through Yellowstone National Park. Very unusual for the area, people were out of their cars with tripods and really large telescopic lenses.

Researching migratory birds and bird watching sites online, I could not find anything about the current group of watchers in North Aurora. Several days later there were signs up on this stretch of Randall Road. The signs instructed us that only emergency parking was allowed here. The newspaper reported there were two eagles apparently nesting in a tree at the edge of the Mooseheart Woods. Mystery solved.

We managed to glimpse the eagle pair almost every time we drove up and down the road. Eventually young eagle heads were popping up beside either mama or papa. Sometimes we would see one of the parents soaring over the nearby fields. Watching this young eagle family sometimes became a destination drive-by. There is something beautiful about watching wildlife carve out their space in the middle of a booming suburban area. Kudos to the International Order of the Moose for maintaining the Mooseheart Children’s Home woods and field’s area in North Aurora.

The eagle family went away sometime last fall. I remember looking to see if they were still there and one day they were not. I wondered if the mated pair would be back in the spring. I am happy to report I spotted an eagle perched on the nest at the top of the tree yesterday. I felt gladness and was delighted they were back. There is comfort in the life cycle ritual of wildlife returning to the same nest to raise their young.

Spring is in the air, birds are twittering in the yard and the eagles have returned. Enjoying this one perfect moment in time…………………..

©2011 Susan Kendall.  All rights reserved

About Lily

Born in Topeka, Kansas in the middle of the 20th Century, daughter, granddaughter, niece, sister, cousin, mother, aunt, grandmother, great-grandmother, friend, reader, spiritual, writer, cook, crafter, junker...... twice-married, former non-profit executive in retread mode... currently living a bucket list life in a remodeled schoolhouse.....
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