Today is International Women’s Day. I should probably be writing something about the rights women fought for, gained, have threatened and lost. About women in Gaza who lose more than just whatever rights remain to them, losing their families or even their lives. The women in Afghanistan who no longer have access to education, much less choices to thrive in anything other than the domestic sphere, if there. The women of America whose reproductive rights and bodily freedom are under an ongoing assault. And then we are faced with a reply to the SOTU address by a Republican Senator from Alabama, who sits at her kitchen table (where women belong ?) with a cross studded with diamonds around her neck (in case you forget the goal to make this into a Christian nation after all), all drama queen, stage whispering with fake tears in her eyes, how” illegal” immigrants are murdering our wives and daughters, painting a picture that might as well have come right out of The Handmaid’s Tale.) One might wonder how someone who says sexual assault is the worst thing that can happen to a woman, is encouraging Americans to vote for a convicted sexual predator.

For the sake of sanity – yours as well as mine – I will instead write about the most glorious sights I encountered this week, providing some diversion from our political reality. Some 40 minutes north of Portland, in the state of Washington, runs the Lewis river, emptying into the Columbia which in turn joins the Pacific. At this time of year there are runs of smelt that make their way from the ocean, up the rivers, to their spawning grounds. These small fish from the family Osmeridae live most of their lives in the sea, and when I consulted wikipedia to learn more of them I encountered this: smelt tastes like smelt. Good to know.

The runs vary in size, with climate change making a large, negative impact already. Across the last years, recreational fishing for them in many regions of the Pacific Northwest was severely regulated, they were so scarce. This year the Fish and Wildlife Administration offered people permits for their dipping nets that were only open for a couple of single days.

The bald eagles who congregate at the confluence of the rivers benefit, of course, when they don’t have to compete with fishermen for the increasingly smaller number of prey. The sight was spectacular. In a landscape straight out of a 17th century Flemish painting, they congregate on trees by the hundreds. A steady coming and going, dipping in the water, then hanging out with their lunch on various snags or branches.

Many of them circling higher than I had ever seen them. I first thought those were vultures, joining the feast, but no, all eagles, many of them juvenile who still have brown feathers instead of the symbolic white heads and tail feathers. Lots of courtship acrobatics in the air, with males and females, mating for life, eventually tumbling down in pirouettes, gripping each other’s talons before landing for the fun to begin.

To see the most amazing close up shots, done with professional equipment that I cannot match, by a nature photographer, Mike Schultz, who really stands out, look here. The pictures are from 2021, when the smelt run was bigger than today.

Images by Mike Schultz

My equipment might not live up to these standards, but my enthusiasm sure did. Standing in sunshine, if cool, listening to the sounds of these birds, as well as the sea lions joining the hunt, my heart simply lifted. There was no pretense, no play acting, no hidden agenda, no political manipulation – just nature doing what it does, surviving the day, planning for future generations and protecting them, being in the moment, rising.

A gift.

Music today is Chopin’s Heroic, dedicated to all women who are, having no other choice. And fitting for the eagles as well…..