Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

From my home on Turtle Creek, I regularly see bald eagles. They never cease to excite me unlike, say, crows or robins. It’s because eagles have such a majesty about them. And they put on the grandest of dive bombing shows.

There is a tall dead tree across the creek that serves as their lookout tower. When they spot something especially juicy swimming down the creek, they dive from up high into a downward swooping arch and snatch it. Crows never do anything that impressive, and the robins … well, robins … they only have boring tugs of war with worms. Where’s the pageantry in that?

Here are some eagle factoids that I learned from a recent Saturday Evening Post. Did you know that eagles used to be found in every state except Hawaii? In 1782, when the U.S. adopted the bald eagle as its national symbol, there were as many as 100,000 nesting pairs.

But, wouldn’t you know it. Of course there had to be some malcontents who made an outcry claiming that the bald eagle was a threat to their livelihoods. So, what happened? In 1917, the Alaska Territorial Legislature sponsored a bounty of 50 cents (later increasing this to $2.00) for each pair of eagle feet, talons included. This led to the tragic death of more than 125,000 birds.

The Post editorial stated that in our zeal to be all things to all men, Americans had undertaken an extermination of our national treasure just because of the belly aching of the complaining few. They were forgetting all about the fact that the bird was here before we ever arrived on these shores. And where was their memory of when we were so impressed with its wild and bold freedom that we chose the eagle as our national emblem? Rather than destroying this majestic creature, we ought to have held it sacred and defended it in every way possible.

Along the Alaskan coast, eagles have always abounded, living off of fish, game and small animals. This practice has been going on from time immemorial. It was the aforementioned kvetchers who interrupted this when they began farming the blue fox. As it was the natural instinct for the eagles to live on wild meat, they were known to not only carry off the occasional young fox, but also young lambs, grouse, rabbits and the like.

The fox farmers didn’t let up, though, but continued to complain bitterly until a member of Congress relieved their distress by removing the eagle from the protected list. As a result, some 5,100 birds were wiped out in only 18 months, an absolutely tragic and unnecessary waste of life.

The Post pleaded saying that when it came to the affairs of Nature—a plan that had done very well under Almighty God—we were out of line to interfere. This kind of hysteria was wrong, foolish and indefensible.

Then decades later, and quite unexpectedly, the eagle population got a huge boost from a 53-year-old housewife named Doris Mager. Doris was the kind of nondescript woman you would easily pass by on the street and never notice. But what the world didn’t know was that Doris had a fire burning deep in her soul. She noticed that a pair of eagles had not returned for their 1979 nesting season. This spelled doom for the eagles as no other birds were ever as attached to their nests as were the bald eagles, and no bird in North America ever built a larger or stouter home. Their nests were compositions of meticulous labor, woven with an intricacy and strength that marries art with utility. Doris knew that these nests were emblematic of the species’ resilience and without them there would be no more eagles.

So, Determined Doris went into action. She decided that she would do something all by herself. That something was a sit-in … er, make that a nest-in. Yes, Doris was going to climb up the tree and settle herself in the empty nest. Outfitted for the task with owl earrings dangling from her ears, her silver hair tied up with a red bandanna and her neck wreathed in a spread-eagle necklace, she set off.

Ever so carefully, Mager slipped into a safety harness that was secured to an upper branch. Along side it was a grounding cable for a lightning rod. Another precaution was the swallowing of a motion sickness pill because the wind was causing the tree to sway menacingly. “I get airsick and seasick,” she confessed, “so, I’ll probably get nestsick, too.”

Slowly she coaxed herself step-by-step up the ladder which rested against the rust-colored bark. It was 50 feet to the summit. When the wind blew, the tree creaked like an old door causing her to grip the rungs tighter while she took much needed deep breaths.

When Mager reached the first branch of the loblolly tree, she stepped onto it. Still she was ten feet short of her goal. So, she used a hoisting rope to pull herself up and over into the nest. By now a crowd had gathered around the base of the tree. And despite a storm that was moving in from the north, she yelled down to the assemblage, “You don’t know what you’re missing. It’s gorgeous up here!”

Doris’ plan was to live in the tree for six days and six nights. She wanted to experience the eagles’ residence firsthand, seeing what they saw, feeling the motion of the tree, being warmed by the sun and listening to the pitch of the wind through the woodland canopy.

Despite having no formal science background, Doris had been rescuing and rehabilitating injured and orphaned raptors for many years. At one time she had seven bald eagles living in her backyard. She wasn’t always sure how to treat them, but followed the simple advice her father had taught her: “Use common sense and Epsom salts for everything.”

Folks came from everywhere to see her up in the nest—Audubon members, tourists, journalists, television film crews and general spectators who had never seen a bald eagle in the wild. Helpers rigged up a pulley system to send food and water upward. She even had an old Maxwell House coffee can repurposed as a chamber pot. Someone brought her a steak with mushrooms and the ice cream man sent up a treat for her everyday. On some evenings there was music, dancing and pizza partying down below, with her share raised slice-by-slice up the pulley.

In the nest, surrounding Doris, were the leftovers from the eagles’ dinners: fish heads and rotting animal carcasses. They didn’t bother Doris.

Contentedly, she was equipped with a walkie-talkie, a bed contrived from a patio lounge cushion, blankets, a pillow, and clean clothes hoisted up daily. To her delight she found there was plenty of room for her to stretch out in the nest’s six-foot diameter.

Before long Life Magazine published a full page photo of Mager. She was barefoot, wearing a pink shirt and Jackie O. sunglasses. Then Paul Harvey of “And Now You Know The Rest of The Story” radio fame also showed up along with 20 million of his listeners.

The nest-in raised more than $6,000. But way more importantly, it resulted in America’s awareness of the plight of the eagle. Aviaries and education centers sprang up all over our country.

Amazing, isn’t it, what one little old nondescript housewife can achieve when she puts her mind to it. I wonder if the eagles ever knew it was Doris who helped save them? If you know any eagles personally, please tell them.