Eye to Eye
By Tanya Sousa
When you REALLY look into a the eyes of another being, you are changed. But it's not only you who are changed. The other being is changed too. I truly understood this the first and only time I looked deeply into the golden eyes of an osprey and had him look deeply, searchingly into mine. As so many realizations happen, it was an epiphany that would never have taken place if I hadn’t overcome fear.
I drove by a long stretch of wetlands to and from work each day, a place always full of life such as muskrats, herons, ducks, geese, turtles, and there would be the occasional treat of spying an osprey circling above, or, better yet, diving into the water and lifting again with a fish in his talons.
As I drove to work one day, I noticed a single osprey perched on a weathered log jutting out from the fetid marsh waters. That evening, I saw him again in the same spot. My commute the next morning revealed the osprey still there. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. Something was very wrong; an osprey is rarely down low perching like that, but certainly not in the same place over and over again. I feared this bird had some kind of injury. I knew I’d have to do something to help.
The nearest raptor wildlife rehabilitator was two hours away and couldn’t come, but if I could get the bird, he said he could meet me halfway the following day.
I told my husband I’d need the truck to carry the canoe – to get a stranded and most definitely injured osprey. “The thing could claw you up! Have you seen their talons? Their beaks?” Yes, I had, but I’d also dealt with angry roosters by sweeping them up by their feet and setting them on their backs. They would relax that way and were unable to strike out. Would an osprey be different? I grabbed some heavy leather gloves, the canoe, and drove with my husband to the place in the wetlands where we could see the osprey stranded.
Handling the bird or getting a beak or talon-thrashing in doing so, wasn’t my fear. My horror was the swamp water – murky, hiding goodness knows what beneath it – mud that I knew could suck my shoes off and pull my feet into its mire – weeds that felt like they were the hands of the deceased grabbing at me – I loved floating on the top of that water, but I had a near phobia of ending up in it.
We inched the canoe close to the log and the osprey, who eyed us and shifted as far to one edge of the log as he could. I flexed my hands inside the gloves and slowly reached to the bird’s legs, but he suddenly tried to fly, struck by his ownabject fear. He only managed to flop from the log into the water where he floated helplessly. Both wings spread out on the water’s surface, keeping him temporarily afloat.
I looked at my husband. “Steady the canoe. I have to go in.” I don’t know what happened, but all I could think of was the bird floating in distress and my desire to help that beautiful being. I carefully got out of the rocking canoe and stepped almost waist-deep into the swamp. I waded to the bird, who couldn’t resist now if he wanted to, and was able to reach underneath him in the water, find and secure his legs gently in my wet gloved hand, and slowly pull him up and almost upside-down. Like roosters, he was unable to fight.
When we paddled back and got into the truck, the osprey rested on his back and on my soaked thighs. I looked at him and he looked back at me with round golden-yellow eyes. The eyes didn’t stare with aggression anymore. They had for a few minutes, but then I felt the bird’s body relax as he saw me. The golden eyes began moving about – searching deeply into my own, and that was the moment I realized something on a deeper level than I’d ever known it before. The injured bird kept searching my eyes and face and found something safe and trustworthy there. I searched his eyes and knew myself better than I ever had and knew him too. I always loved animals, but birds of prey were not my favorites for some reason. I suddenly valued them as much as any other, non-predatory bird. I almost sadly parted with him the next day when I transported him to the halfway point and he moved into the hands of the raptor rehabilitator.
There is magic that transpires when two beings see each other. My lifelong fear of ending up in marsh water is gone – the fear of what could be hiding there, vanquished – thanks to a pair of stunningly golden eyes.
(Courtey Photo)