The Eagle
On a cold, late October Saturday last year, I was doing a long run through the back trails of a military base in far eastern North Carolina, set along the Atlantic Ocean. It was unseasonably cold for that time of year. And the sky, typically clear on a crisp day like that out on the coast, was mottled gray; the sun seemed to appear from behind a thick bank of clouds and then suddenly disappear behind another. The wind was eerily still, although occasional gusts from off the ocean would sway the tall, loblolly pines that lined the trail.
The leaves from the hardwoods were mostly down now, but many trees still wore thin shrouds of yellow, orange, and red, holding on to the last vestiges of color. Pinecones lay everywhere along the path through the sandy, coastal soil. Deer on occasion wandered out onto the route in front of me, not aware of my presence, until turning to see me coming, then gracefully trotting back from whence they came.
It was, in that eastern Carolina coastal way, a beautiful day.
I had come to love running these trails back when I was a young Major, stationed at the same base over a decade before. They wind back and forth through the forest, following and then crossing over streams and brooks, until they deposit you back out on the asphalt of the roads that crisscross the base.
I’ve seen wildlife of all kinds along the trails. Deer, racoons, squirrels, snakes, turkeys, lizards, foxes, countless species of birds, even owls and hawks.
I was looking for them on that late October day when, about thirty minutes into my run, I saw a strange shadow cross the ground from right to left only a few yards in front of me. Looking up into the sky directly above, I saw what appeared to be a large bird, just hovering there, probably 100 feet above me. I stopped to see if I could make it out.
At first, I thought it was a hawk. I had seen several of them before. Those coastal hawks glide softly and slowly back and forth on extended wings, looking for prey on the ground. But this was not a hawk. It was too big.
And then, the realization hit me; it was an eagle. An eagle with a white head. A bald eagle.
Was it possible? Did bald eagles live this far out on the coast? I quickly did a self-sanity check to see if my eyes were deceiving me. They weren’t. Bald eagle, or “Haliaeetus leucocephalus” means “sea eagle with a white head.” Like other sea eagles, the bald eagle lives near water and relies on powerful wings and talons to scavenge fish, its main source of food. Once endangered by pesticides and hunting, the bald eagle has made a stunning comeback and was removed from the Endangered Species List in 2007. I learned that bald eagles were native to almost all of North Carolina, especially the coastal regions.
I continued my run and looked for the bald eagle. I couldn’t find him. But after a few minutes, he returned, flying high back over the trail I was on, but noticeably lower than before. I kept running, and the eagle kept floating on his wings, turning effortlessly one way and then back the other, staying on the same route I was going. What was he doing?
This went on for several minutes. And then just as swiftly as he had appeared in the sky overhead, he swooped off toward the ocean to the east, out of sight over the top of the pines. He was gone. It was the first and I figured maybe the only time I had ever seen a bald eagle in a natural setting.
I reached the point of the trail where I usually turned around, and started heading back home.
An hour later, I was back home, sitting and recovering from the long run on my patio behind our house. Our backyard backed up to some thick woods between the house and the base golf course. And just like along the trails, the tree line was filled with tall, graceful loblolly pines and thick old hardwoods.
I was sitting in an Adirondack chair reading something, when I heard a quick series of high-pitched, chirping whistles. I had never heard it before. “What the heck is that?” I asked myself. I looked into the tree line and scanned it up and down from my left to right.
Out of the corner of my eye, my gaze flashed across something out of place, and I looked back. And I couldn’t believe what I saw.
There, high atop one of the more stand-alone loblollies, sat the bald eagle, silent and still. He was looking straight at me. He could’ve been no more than 30 yards away.
I stood still. I didn’t have my phone, so pictures weren’t an option. I didn’t want to provoke him to fly off, so I didn’t move.
And he just sat there, staring at me. Then came the high-pitched whistles again. He would do it every 10 seconds or so. I suddenly had the strange feeling he was talking to me. What was he saying?
I stood there, and he sat there for at least a minute, regarding me with what appeared to be a mix of wonder and suspicion. Finally, he tilted his head over to the left, like someone might do when they’re interested in something.
After a few seconds, he seemed satisfied, straightened up, and took off, sweeping quickly up and away from me in the opposite direction, climbing higher and higher, until he was gone beyond the tree line.
In the remaining eight months we were on the base, I never saw another eagle. He seemed to have appeared out of nowhere on that cold, quiet Saturday at the end of October when I was running the backtrails all alone, hovering high above, watching me.
And I will always wonder and remember how he followed me home.
Glen Hines is the author of five books, including the recently published Of Time and Rivers, and the highly-regarded Bring in the Gladiators, Observations From a Former College Football Player Who Was Never Able to Become a Fan, all available at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. He is the writer and producer of the book and podcast Welcome to the Machine, available on most podcast platforms. His writing on military service, sports, current events, the outdoors, and the bright and dark sides of American culture has been published in various outlets, such as Sports Illustrated, Task and Purpose, the Human Development Project, Amazon, and Audible.
