“There’s a bald eagle in our tree,” shouted my then-4-year-old daughter. I was on the phone at the time and virtually ignored what I thought was a plea for attention and not an actual observation. But, when I glanced out the window, I saw not one, but four bald eagles in our locust tree.

I quickly wrapped up my conversation and we scurried to our upstairs deck to see them from above. But there were two more eagles overhead. They were circling and shrieking their characteristic call. There was not one, but six bald eagles.

This was remarkable for several reasons.

First, eagles don’t tend to congregate in groups. They are typically solitary creatures except when they are with their mates. Eagles are monogamous and maintain the same breeding pair year after year.

So was this somehow two pairs together? Or could this possibly be a migrating group of eagles?

Obviously migration has been on my mind after writing about whales last week. But, I thought Maine’s bald eagle population didn’t migrate. However, I hadn’t thought of the eagles from places further south who would be returning about this time of year to breed back in the north where there would be plenty of food for their newborn offspring.

Bald eagles are dependent on open water sources and when their waterways freeze over in the winter, they head south. But, those who live along coasts where the water doesn’t freeze can stay there all year.

Such is the case for our coastal Maine population. But not for the majority of bald eagles living further inland. They migrate south each year and then come back as soon as weather permits. And they tend to migrate in groups. That helps to explain the gathering in my yard — and why they might have chosen to rest in our tree. They often fly 100 miles each day, averaging 30 miles an hour on their journey. I would want to take a rest too.

The second reason that this occasion was remarkable is that it’s just amazing to think there are enough eagles out there for there to be six of a species that was recently endangered in my tiny yard.

Many of us are familiar with the sentinel story of eagles and pesticides that Rachel Carson alerted people to in the 1960s. Farms were using increasing amounts of DDT to control insect populations on their crops. But this chemical had the unintended result of thinning the eggshells of many bird species including the bald eagle.

Carson wrote about this in her famous book, “Silent Spring,” and helped stir people to act to ban DDT in the United States. In 1978, the population of bald eagles had been so reduced that they were listed as endangered. But now there are six bald eagles in my backyard — this is a happy ending to a successful conservation effort. In fact, their recovery has been significant enough that it was removed from the endangered species list in 2007. In Maine alone, there are estimated to be more than 600 pairs of breeding bald eagles.

But there’s yet another reason that this sighting was bizarre. I live in the middle of town in Brunswick on a busy street with a small yard tucked between adjacent houses. It isn’t exactly eagle habitat.

Eagles like water — rivers, lakes, oceans, even marshes — but not usually urban neighborhoods. In the past several years, we have had an interesting array of passers-by including a porcupine way up in the very same locust tree and a deer slinking along our back fence. But, this was definitely the most unusual occurrence to date.

So why were they here in the middle of town?

When I saw two of the eagles circling overhead, I realized that, though I could not, they could see the Androscoggin River from up there and that we were really only a half-mile or so away. I hadn’t given it much thought as I’d never seen an eagle on the river while frequently traveling on the paths along it. I was used to seeing them on the ocean perched up in craggy trees along the shore or out on the islands.

Their giant platform nests, delightfully called aeires, often give them away. They are built of sticks and twigs and can weigh over a ton and measure up to six feet in height and width. They lay their two or three eggs, which they incubate for about a month in the spring. The fledglings leave the nest a few months after hatching and work their way out on branches to practice flying. It is a rare treat to see them trying their first acrobatic feats. They are almost entirely brown in color and don’t develop their yellow bill white head and tail until they are around five years old — the point at which they will search for a mate.

So, this Thanksgiving I am grateful for many things including the fact that the bald eagle is our national symbol and not the wild turkey, as Benjamin Franklin would have had it. While Franklin believed the eagle to be ”a bird of bad moral character that does not get his living honestly,” referring to his nature as a scavenger, I choose to celebrate the eagle as not only a symbol of freedom but of resilience — a reminder of nature’s amazing potential to recover when people are aware of their impacts and choose to make a positive change.

And, I’m also grateful for the delightfully unexpected and truthful observations of my children that make me pause to appreciate nature’s rare occurrences.

Susan Olcott lives in Brunswick, with her husband and 7-year-old twin girls. She earned her M.S. in zoology studying the lobster fishery in New England. She then designed education programs for the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and taught biology to military personnel in Sardinia, Italy before returning to Maine to work on ocean planning for The Ocean Conservancy. She is now a freelance writer and currently writes about coastal issues for the Harpswell Anchor and The Working Waterfront and about local foods for the Brunswick Topsham Land Trust and Zest Magazine. In addition, she helps local schools pursue educational grants and writes children’s book reviews for the Horn Book’s family reading blog as well as for her own blog: susanolcott.wordpress.com.

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