Sunday morning surprise...

by Sandy Logan
(Toronto, Ontario, Canada )

My wife and I spent the middle two weeks of August 2015 vacationing at her family's cottage on Buckhorn Lake in the Kawarthas with our son and his fiance visiting us for a few days. As is always the case at the cottage, our time there is so perfect, so relaxing and so just so enjoyable to spend quality time with the "kids".

Sitting on the dock, which is the usual pastime, we saw a family of ducklings with their mother cruising the shoreline, parental loons teaching their young and numerous hawks and Osprey circling the treetops of the nearby island. A typical day on the dock (how lucky are we to see all this!).

Then something happened. On the middle Sunday, I woke, put on the coffee, poured a cup and headed to the dock just after 8AM to dry the chairs for the morning sit. The sun was cracking through the tree branches and it looked like it was going to be a nice day. As I put my coffee down to start drying the chairs, I noticed something big in the sky right above me...no more than 20 feet.

It was a Bald Eagle...unmistakably a Bald Eagle! I was so stunned at the sight, I just watched as it silently soared to the nearby island and perched on a tree top.

I have seen Bald Eagles on both coasts of Canada but NEVER in Ontario, OUR Ontario. It was a sight I will always remember and I hope it will not be the last I see here!!

Sandy Logan, Toronto