A man finds himself surrounded by eagles. He’d rescued an injured female after it had been struck by a car a few days earlier, but what he did next will take your breath away.
Jesse P, a musician from Dutch Harbor in Alaska, covered the bald eagle with an old blanket from the back of his truck. The bird was fighting him every step of the way, raking at him with its talons in a desperate attempt to free herself. But Jesse was determined; he had to get this magnificent bird of prey into his truck. He had no choice; it was a matter of life and death.
He made another attempt at getting a proper grip on the bird. The talons on the eagle’s left foot had pierced through the wool of the blanket, and the bird had twisted its body into an awkward position. Jesse wished he had his heavy-duty fishing gloves with him; this bird was dangerous. If that beak or those talons managed to sink into his flesh, he would end this day worse for the wear. But if she continued to twist and turn with her talon stuck in the blanket, she could seriously injure herself. It was a catch-22, a difficult dilemma with no clear solution.
Carefully using his left forearm to keep the majestic bird of prey under some kind of control, Jesse freed the talon from the blanket. In a single movement, he covered the bird’s head. It instantly calmed her down. Jesse wrapped the blanket tightly around the eagle, partly to make sure she didn’t injure herself and partly to prevent her from attacking him again. Then he loaded the bird into the cabin of his truck.
He turned the key, and the old engine spluttered twice before it started chugging on its own. Jesse felt the tightness of tremendous urgency in his chest. There was a veterinary hospital 20 miles away; they would know what to do. Jesse had been on his way home when he’d come across the bald eagle. It had been hit by a vehicle about 10 miles out of town. By the time Jesse had reached it, the badly injured bird was regaining consciousness and had turned into a menacing, combative bundle of feathers and fury.
He could see that all was not well with the eagle’s left wing, and there was blood on the bird’s head too. For a moment, Jesse wanted to curse the tourists. The bald eagles migrated to Dutch Harbor in their numbers every year as soon as winter set in.
That’s around the same time the tourists started making their way back home. The thing is, the tourists don’t know these magnificent animals, not like the locals do. Dutch Harbor residents know how to keep a lookout for the birds as soon as the season starts, but tourists are often oblivious. It was the same thing every year: injured and dead birds next to the road into town.
When he burst through the doors at the vet, the assistant was just about to leave for the day. She took one look at Jesse with the eagle in his arms and shook her head. Another injured eagle. She immediately paged the vet and asked Jesse where he’d found the bird, then a couple of other questions. The woman jotted Jesse’s answers down in a file and mentioned that this was the third bald eagle to come into the vet’s office in less than a week.
Once the vet appeared, Jesse relaxed. The bird was in good hands now. He helped the vet get the bird into an examination room and then stood back to watch the animal doctor do his magic. Thirty minutes later, the vet returned to Jesse. He told the fisherman that the bird had a 50/50 chance of surviving the night, but if she did, her chances of making a full recovery would be fair to good.
Jesse wasn’t sure whether he should be relieved or concerned. The following afternoon, as soon as he was done with work, Jesse drove out to the vet’s office again. He wanted to make sure the eagle was okay. The vet met him at the door, sat him down, and explained the bird’s condition.
The first thing that concerned him, the doctor said, was that the eagle was still exhibiting perplexing behavior. Instead of responding to her surroundings, she appeared disoriented and unresponsive. She trembled non-stop and sought refuge in a corner of her cage without apparent cause. This made the vet think that she could have a potential brain injury. She also had small retinal tears in both eyes, but if she got well, those would heal without any lasting effects.
Jesse dropped his face in his hands and rubbed vigorously. Then he asked the vet what the eagle’s chances of survival were. The vet told him they had administered medication to help control the swelling in the bird’s brain. If that worked, she would be fine. If it didn’t, well, then she probably wouldn’t make it.
Then the vet took Jesse into the back to see the eagle he had rescued. The next afternoon, Jesse did the same again. Instead of going straight home from work, he swung by the vet’s office to see the eagle. This time he had a small container of shrimp he had taken with him.
When Jesse sat down in a chair in front of her cage, the bird eyed him suspiciously. She didn’t seem all that skittish anymore; maybe that was a good sign. But when Jesse held out one of the shrimps, his hand came too close to the cage for the eagle’s liking. Her head jerked up, and she cowered back into a far corner.
Jesse continued to visit the eagle daily. After two weeks, the swelling in her brain had subsided, and her retinas had healed well. The vet told Jesse that he had called in the help of a wildlife expert from the mainland to help release the bird back into the wild.
That coming Saturday, Jesse joined the vet and Mike, a wildlife researcher from the University of Alaska Anchorage, on the expedition to set the bald eagle free. She was in a cage, which was covered with the blanket Jesse had used on the night he brought her to the vet. When the gate of the cage slid up, the eagle immediately flew out. She hung around for about 30 seconds, then spread her magnificent wings and took to the sky. The three men watched until she was no more than a dot in a wide blue expanse.
Jesse’s routine returned to normal. He still thought about the eagle almost every day and even missed his trips to the vet on occasion. But he had made peace with the fact that she was a wild animal, and that he would probably never see her again.
Little did he know, shortly before Christmas, Dutch Harbor was hit with a particularly cold spell. The snow whipped around the docks and made the fishermen’s lives generally unpleasant. It lasted for four days. When the sun finally broke through the clouds, the boat set out to sea again. Jesse was in his element. Aside from his music, he loved fishing and loved to join the local fishermen out on the ocean every chance he got. He couldn’t be a happier camper if he tried.
At the end of the day, the catch was magnificent. They’d hauled in the biggest load of shrimp that Jesse could remember, and his personal catch consisted of a few sizable salmon. Then he noticed something against the ice-blue sky. At first, it was nothing more than a dot, but as it started to circle lower, he recognized the shape and the unique movements. It was a bald eagle.
The bird circled lower and then landed on the foredeck. Jesse couldn’t believe his eyes; it was the female eagle he’d rescued more than two months before. Jesse smiled, talked to the bird, and tossed a handful of shrimp in her direction. She looked at him for a second and then vacuumed the crustaceans from the deck. But what happened next left Jesse dumbfounded.
Suddenly, Jesse noticed a whole bunch of little dots against the blue sky. He tried to count them, five, no, six, and then there were more. The next moment, a total of 12 bald eagles landed on the foredeck, among them was the female he had befriended. She had responded to his continued acts of kindness and brought a crowd of her wild friends to come and feast on the shrimps Jesse had to offer.
Jesse’s care and kindness forged an extraordinary friendship between a human and a wild bald eagle, bridging the gap between humans and animals. This story of human-eagle interaction had my heart beating a little faster. Have you ever had an encounter with a large bird of prey? Let us know in the comments below; we’d love to hear.
