Then I saw the Eagle. It was twenty feet above the water and lazily flapping its wings in long fluid motion. The Loons were going nuts. As always, I was fascinated by this dance. The Eagle swooped in on the attack and at the last instant the Loon dove under the water. The Eagle flapped its wings to hover over the spot where the Loon went under. The Eagle could see the Loon move away from that spot but the Loon can remain underwater for a long time, so the Eagle climbed and circled and waited. I never understood why the Eagle was attacking the male, which was at least as big as the Eagle. What was he going to do with it if he caught it? The Eagle circled and then flew off to a high pine branch. The Loon came back to the surface a considerable distance from where he went under. They fly underwater just like they do in the air. They’re not graceful birds in the air, but they’re incredibly fast underwater.
I always wondered why the Eagle didn’t go after the baby Loon. That was something it could handle. Whatever the reason, the Eagle almost never did. I say almost, because one day an Eagle did go after the baby. The Loons were screaming bloody murder and the Eagle shrieked and the male Loon launched himself into the air and attacked the Eagle. The baby went under and the mother Loon stayed to fight for a moment before going under too. The male Loon was closing fast and the Eagle knew it and abandoned his quarry and headed back the way it had come. I had never seen a Loon just launch out of the water into flight. They generally start flapping their long thin wings and run across the water as they pick up speed to get into the air.
The excitement was over as the Eagle flew away. The male Loon unfurled his wings and began flapping them like a gorilla pounding his chest announcing himself as the victor. I never once saw an Eagle victory except to steal a fish that the Loon had caught that was too big for it to swallow. The Loon abandoned his catch to dive underwater as the Eagle swooped in and grabbed the fish in its talons and flew back to his tree.
I checked my watch and decided that I had better get ready for my date. I smiled to myself when I thought, ‘Date.’ I had made a reservation for dinner at a fancy restaurant about half way to the city. It was still a long drive. I figured the time could be spent talking. The only fancy restaurant in the vicinity was the Inn and I certainly wasn’t going to take her there. Back in the day, dinner and a movie would be on the agenda but I worried that that was too cliché for this day and age. Hell, I didn’t even know if they called it a ‘date’ these days. Getting to know each other over dinner would be fine and if it worked okay, I’d ask her out again. If she thought this date worked out okay, she’d say ‘yes’ and then I’d have to get more creative. What a pain in the ass. I was already getting negative so I put my mind in order and finished getting dressed, which was a pain in the ass itself. The dress slacks and shirt that I had worn to the Inn were in the laundry and I didn’t have a lot of choices buried deep in my closet. I had to go upstairs to a closet in the spare bedroom to find something. Fortunately, everything up there had been dry-cleaned and was still in the plastic bags.