RENVILLE COUNTY – The bird the eagle stole was a drake wood duck resplendent in colors a painter couldn't imagine. The boys, Harry Smith and my son Cole had cartwheeled the woodie as it banked high over their decoys, splashing it 30 yards or so from their blind. This was Saturday morning, a little after 7, the first day of the Minnesota duck season.
Had another duck, a blue-winged teal, not appeared from an opposite direction just then, I would have sent our black Lab, Del, immediately for the downed bird. But this was a little burst of activity a half-hour or so into shooting time and I didn't want to mess it up for the boys. So I watched a few long moments as the teal flirted with our setup, dipping one wing, then another, before disappearing with a whoosh of its wings. Such aerobatics transfix waterfowlers, and I watched intently. But the darting bird was gone nearly as quickly as it appeared, and now it was time for Del to earn his keep.
Which is when the eagle appeared.
Unknown to us, it must have watched from a vantage point not too distant as the wood duck the boys shot somersaulted into the Minnesota River backwater we were hunting. Will Smith, of Willmar, along with his brother, Dan, of Rapid City, S.D., have owned the property since the early 1970s, and the three of us have hunted it together since that time, when Will and I were in college together.
Now it's the next generation's turn, and Will was on site Saturday with his three boys, Parker, 13, Harry, 17, and Matthew, 19, as was Dan and his son Neil, 30, and I with Cole.
"Dad, that's an eagle,'' Cole said, drawing Harry's attention, and mine, to the unlikely sight of an immense bird slipping air through its primary feathers and, with an angel's grace, descending 100 feet or so. Aligned then with our bellied-up wood duck, the winged predator drew a bead on the dead bird as straight as a meridian, its talons extended.
Just like that the duck was vanished from our dinner menu. Nevertheless, we considered it a good trade, one wood duck for such a memorable sight. The wonder, really, wasn't so much that the eagle had so easily absconded with a meal but instead how effortlessly it regained cruising altitude with the duck carried below it like a torpedo.
"He made that look easy,'' I said.