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Scene: Bear is driving home along the Hartford/West Hartford line, though pretty much urban wasteland of strip malls and highway interchanges. About a mile from home, movement catches her eye.

Stream of consciousness:

hey that's a big bird wonder if it's a vulture weird to see a vulture in the city see it again when it comes out from behind the trees hey that's not a vulture huh the tail looks dirty white too big for a hawk hey the head is white too HOLY SHIT THERE'S A BALD EAGLE CIRCLING OVER THE PROSPECT STREET ON RAMP TO I-84!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!eleventyone!!!!!!

...thank you, Rachel Carson, where-ever you are.

I saw the bird again on Friday, right by the Brainard Road exit off 91, where there's water on both sides of the highway. It crossed the road immediately in front of me and then paralleled traffic off to the left for as long as I had it in sight; I don't think it was more than thirty yards off. Close enough for me to see the beak and the eyes, and the irregular ragged dabs of white on the underside.

I am now 95% confident that it's a juvenile bald eagle.

Hey, dude/tte. Nice to see you.

Stay as long as you like.

On the way to the climbing gym tonight, I saw an enormous bird circling over the Connecticut River. It wasn't a red-tailed hawk or a turkey vulture, our two common large raptors. It was larger than the first, and didn't fly with a rowing motion, nor did it sail on stiff wings held like as shallow V, like the second. It was dark in color, and its wingbeats were dexterous, grasping, like the graceful beckoning of fingers.

I think it was a juvenile bald eagle.

:-)