Those Dam Eagles

and Them Crooked Vultures

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When you visit Conowingo Dam for the Bald Eagles, Great Blue Herons, Double-Crested Cormorants, and Tree Swallows hunting for fish and insects over the water, you will be first greeted by a bevy of Black Vultures looking to feast on your car’s windshield wipers and vinyl trim.

At least that’s the warning you’ll get when you park there. (This being the United States, getting there using public transportation is difficult, and the bridge over the dam doesn’t have sidewalks or much of a shoulder, so you’d be risking your life getting there on foot or bicycle. Then you’d be feeding the vultures.)

If you dare to risk your car’s rubber accoutrements, you are in for a treat. I counted a good dozen Bald Eagles, adults and juveniles, perched on the dam’s concrete structures and across the river on the rocky shore. And if you’re lucky, you’ll see them fishing, among the humans casting lures and bait into the water, hoping to catch striped bass.

Like bass, and skunks, gearheads come in many stripes and most of them stink. Perhaps in your journeys you’ve encountered the wildlife camera gearhead who shows up at a popular park dressed for a trip to the Antarctic, in their branded multiple layer shell, a camera and titano-phallic zoom lens that costs more than the average used car, and waders in case they need to jump into the river for that perfect shot, despite their tripod being planted on a concrete viewing platform that can be navigated with a baby stroller.

If you show up with lesser gear, they won’t even acknowledge you, except to demand, “let me know when one of them catches a fish.” Because after all, as an amateur photographer, you are their personal squire, and if you serve them well, they may deign to gift you unasked for beard grooming tips.

There are too many majestic and beautiful birds to watch to be bothered by rich dorks. But no, I did not tell the National Geographic Explorer wannabe about the one above.

It pays not to be an ass.

Conowingo Dam is about halfway between Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., a short drive from Baltimore, and the Susquehanna Inn is nearby if you want pit beef in the summer, or excellent crab fries all year round—proper crab imperial on top of fresh fries, not the Old Bay-dusted Sysco crap that Chickie and Pete’s tried to trademark. My friend Hannah told me about the dam, and we discovered the roadfood delight of the Inn together the first time we met there.

Fisher folk, crab fries, walk and die at your own risk

The gearhead did identify the problem with taking photos at Conowingo Dam; the birds so damn majestic that all your pictures elicit a small bit of awe. Isn’t it good to know that awe is a renewable resource? Don’t let your ability to be awed become dulled or jaded. While some birders overseas call Bald Eagles “American Trash Pigeons” for their proclivity to scavenge, particularly at dumps, there’s something about their large beak and piercing eyes that makes them awe-inspiring, even in juvenile dark plumage. These are just the photos with the power lines in the background!

Sometimes, Great Blue Herons are very acclimated to humans; at a seaside restaurant in San Diego, I met one who hunted in a nearby tide pool, and probably got fed shrimp tails. The one at Timber Creek is very shy, so I always appreciate seeing one:

I took over 500 photos and went “ooh!” at about eighty of them, and I can’t share that many here. Nor would I expect you to view them all. I’ve picked my very favorites. There were also Double-Crested Cormorants diving for fish, and Tree Swallows zooming around for bugs.

I took these photos over the course of two hours, broken up by the aforementioned tasty lunch. I call this set, “Mom! She won’t stop touching me!”

So, I get it, beard-dude. It’s easy to let your awe receptors get clogged. I got photos of an eagle with a fish. I told Hannah that I was hoping to get a photo of one taking a dump in mid-air. (I’ve seen a Great Blue Heron poop from a high perch, and I will say that both the volume and the distance of its white arc were impressive.) Until then, my awe will have to be satisfied by the eagle’s grand proportions and their confidence in the sky.