Bald Eagles at Yorktown

As I travel through the park system, almost without fail I'll have one amazing sighting or event occur at each site I visit.

In October of 2001, shortly after 9/11, I was walking the Yorktown Battlefield in Colonial NHP. I was in a somber mood, my mind full of loss & terrorists & the decline of America and all sorts of other negative ideas that we probably all had in those weeks & months after the attacks. It was gorgeous, cloudless day, crisp but otherwise beautiful. A perfect day, but an imperfect mood.

I was walking across one of the fields when I noticed two hawks circling around beyond a Revolutionary War re-enactor lecturing a group of tourists. I stood to watch the raptors (as I am want to do), when I noticed they weren't hawks at all -- they were bald eagles.

I was quite shocked, I tell you what. I hadn't realized bald eagles had recovered so tremendously that they made it that far south -- and near a fairly populated area as well. But apparently, they had.

I stood and watched for quite some time. The symbolism of bald eagles circling the very battleground where the colonies gained their independence, so soon after 9/11, was not lost on me, that's for durn sure. Over 6 years later, it seems sappy & trite, but at that moment in time, it was pretty powerful.

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My travels through the National Park System: americaincontext.com