My grandparents built a cottage on the shore of Linekin Bay Boothbay Harbor in 1923. Nowhere in the historical record since, nor in the thousand years prior, had there been any recorded sightings of the world’s largest weighing eagle, the Steller’s sea eagle, in Maine or in the lower 48 states. So it is with great awe and excitement that this exotic wonder from Asia has attracted people in winter to Boothbay Harbor, Maine.

Multiple and regular sightings in past weeks convinced me to join the crowd downeast for a glimpse of the solo Eastern wanderer on its unprecedented global journey. The “Steller’s sea eagle” had been cavorting with American bald eagles, crows, and seagulls and dining locally, having traded its Eastern diet for New England Bay duck and sorted carrion of the morning and evening tides.

My first weekend foray yielded an enviable checklist of the sea eagle’s companions, including its cousins, bald eagles of the area; a gaggle of Canada geese; wintering loons; and an assortment of bay ducks. However, the famous bird was nowhere to be found, but not for lack of searching. There were many “eyes to the sky” with “birders” flying in from around the country, renting cars at New England airports, or simply packing their cars and leaving homes in Michigan or Maryland for the one- or two-day trek downeast.

I picked up my daughter, who was on college break at Maine’s foodie Mecca and historic coastal city, Portland, one hour south of the sea eagle’s most recent sighting, and we spent an afternoon wandering in the cold and rainy weather of a quiet island in the north section of the sea eagle’s new range, which was very rustic and beautiful.

In the morning, I began the search again on my own. Sunrise found a snow coating on the quiet landscape and shoreline, giving a distinctive wintery air to the surroundings, so different from the warm summers spent here.
And somewhere, in the deep shelter of this wonderland, slept the splendid Steller’s sea eagle, nowhere to be seen.

Yet, flocking from all corners and beyond came a wingless species, by all means of invented conveyance: airline, truck, car, camper, kayak, or lobster boat, filling the otherwise vacant hotels, motels, and bed and breakfasts.

After searching again for the sea eagle in the quiet north of its new coastal range, I made my way south to the Maine State Aquarium, which had become a base camp for a veritable birding bonanza. And on that promontory overlooking the harbor, the hubbub was at its peak, with a filled parking lot and people unleashing a birding barrage of equipment from their cars, trucks, and vans: video cameras, binoculars, large and small tripods, folding lounge chairs, and zoom-lensed and telescopic cameras of every description. All were bundled up in layered and colorful garb to fend off the downeast winter chill.

The sea eagle cares nothing of cameras, binoculars, or the dreamy fascinations of its distant relatives, the birding humans, in their downy fashioned parkas. The sea eagle is content to stretch its wings, glide for an afternoon tour of the harbor, and perhaps, if hungry, dive-bomb an unsuspecting duck. Or it deprives a gull or bald eagle of a shrimp, clam, or lobster they intend for themselves, and in turn, the large, lone sea eagle is harassed and robbed of its own duck dinner by a pair of smaller but crafty bald eagles.

Yet, any actual hunting or flights that the sea eagle had taken that day were seen only in imagination, as the sun began to set to the west of our hopes, on the Southport Bridge, at our last lookout for the mysterious, majestic bird, but no sightings were reported.

Nonetheless, undeterred, the humans continued flocking and freezing in the chill of the northern coast.
A pair of them scooted over the bridge, abruptly stopping midpoint and lowering the window of their car with North Carolina plates to ask in a southern drawl, “Where is that sea eagle?!”

Dropping off my daughter, who had joined me for at least part of my obsessive search, I returned home with dreams of what had been left behind, hidden somewhere along the mossy paths, rocky ledges, and spruce hedged coves of the wintery coast.

But the online chatter continued.

One member of the online crowd is a lonely artist returned home to another stretch of coast two states south.
He is not lonely for lack of family, as the sea eagle is, but fortunate, with a patient wife, used to her husband’s flights to sporting events, fishing outings, or many freelance and commissioned painting trips, now with a sudden fascination with the sea eagle. Youngest daughter is “online in college” from home, with Juniper, our puppy pug.

There are also the trappings of home, work to do, and customers waiting for paintings.

But downeast, the sea eagle appears again, above the distant harbor. On the very morning after I returned home, the sunrise found the sea eagle on the other side of a harbor peninsula overlooking an adjacent bay, in clear view like a totem in a high tree.

A neighbor taking in her morning view spied the mysterious visitor and sent her husband out to investigate. Then, with a couple of blurry snapshots posted for the online crowd, the chase was on.

Hearing online chatter of the sea eagle’s flight from its perch at Spruce Point toward East Boothbay, I immediately texted my sister, another birding enthusiast, who was at her cottage on a pond near the center of the sea eagle’s current range, alerting her to get out and drive to Ocean Point, its last bearing!

My sister attracts everything wild and colorful and has a lot of fun stories. So, when the sea eagle arrived, I said, “It would be just like you to have this exotic enormous Asian eagle come to live in view from your cottage, a view it had already visited on a prior day!”

And guess what showed up later, displaying its full plumage in a tall pine, again in view, on the other side of the pond!

For days, I had been telling her, “The sea eagle has come to you. You will see it!”

When she finally went out searching in the early afternoon, she first checked down at the aquarium, where it was quiet after a busy weekend, with only a handful of people in their cars warming up.

And this is going to sound like a dream or a fictional account, but it is logged with timestamps, witnesses, and photographs. And I account it only to note the kind of fun experiences that can inexplicably occur when we stumble onto something that we are looking for against the odds.

She parked her car, got out, and walked toward the water. Looking across the bay, she saw a flock of crows and seagulls flying in the distance. But in their midst was something large, with a less discernible profile. “It was fast.” It came quickly at her and into focus.

“The sea eagle flew from the other side of the harbor to where I was,” she said minutes later, on the phone, trembling, “and landed in a tree next to me!”

I know this sounds bizarre: the sea eagle came from Asia. And while she was looking for it on a point of land near the Maine State Aquarium, it flew to her from across Boothbay Harbor and perched in a tree next to her.

There it stayed while she gathered other people nearby to see it and take photos.

The experience of a lifetime.

Certainly her “Spirit Animal.”

The story swirls around in the artist’s head as he paces the floor of his studio, south of the Maine excitement, incredulous.

“Oh, I see eagles.

“My studio overlooks the mouth of the Merrimack River. And last year at this time, a bald eagle flew past the window landing in a tree behind the house

The snowy owl hunts yonder and came to me one day in the dunes at the nearby Parker River National Wildlife Refuge.”

None of this compares. A spirit in nature grabs at my brushes, pulling me with each mix of color on the palette to a different and rocky coast where the sea eagle flies, drawing with its flight and talons, far away in the north.

Outside of the large picture window and in northern light are a small woodpecker, a cardinal, and robins, all hardy and active on a mild winter day.

But in the mind’s eye, somewhere north, soaring high above or gliding through the pines, is the sea eagle.

Patterns in the mind reflect patterns in nature, drawing outlines of what we perceive and create, like lines of a poem, lines of music, and staged lines of dance.

Breathing in and out, there are patterns of mist in the cold air of a winter day, on the shore, and in the sea eagle’s range and hunting grounds to which I’ve returned.

After a few days in the studio and late nights to complete a painting, I’ve run back to search for the sea eagle, arriving in the afternoon and venturing out along the coves in the north of its range. This is a meditative option, in the great expanse. It is not as productive generally as one of the base camps at the harbors, bridges, or ocean points where the sea eagle’s land ends. Natural settings, quiet places akin to and part of the spirit and sustenance of sea eagle. These are places of the sea eagle’s cousins, regular winter visitors, the bald eagles, hawks, and the occasional golden eagle. Yet, so far, there is no sign of our Asian guest downeast along the cold rough crags and muddy flats of a continued quiet search.

In late afternoon, I walked out across the frozen field of a rustic farm close to the coast. I knew there would be another chance to see the sea eagle flying back from some possible inland foraging. And part of birding is the search and continued scanning of the landscape, trees, and sky with patience.

It was cold in the fleeting daylight, with the sun’s rays dimming over the tops of distant trees along an inlet. The farm gave wonderful expanding views of what’s called “the Gut,” an ocean passage flowing alternately between the glacially scoured ledge rock and grassy water edges.

The sea eagle hadn’t been sighted since morning, and it was the last chance of the day, with dark coming soon. Then, seemingly on cue as I was approaching the water, above the Gut, the sea eagle flew out from the inlet and along the silhouette of pines at the opposite shore, appearing like a vision.

I thought “There you are, so majestic and mysterious!”

The sea eagle was gliding and circling far away. “Come this way,” I said, under my breath.

Then realizing that the great sea eagle was following the other shoreline to the ocean, I pointed my camera and zoomed in as much as I could, holding steady and quickly taking a few shots.

I had discerned the hallmark white patches on the front of the sea eagle’s wings through binoculars, but it was hard to believe.

As I walked alone up the incline of the frozen field, I scrolled through the photos.

Although fuzzy and grainy, there it was on the camera’s monitor: evidence of what I had seen, outlines and patterns, distilling the far away vision.

Then, the sea eagle disappeared beyond the pines in a memory of a distant point.

Having checked in on the two major online chats, I didn’t see any postings of the sea eagle’s whereabouts after 11:30 a.m., so I posted the photo of the image from the camera monitor and this information:

[ Sorry for the poor quality of the photo. The sea eagle was on the other side of the Gut from Oak Farm, far away. It circled and then made its way south along the Gut in the fleeting daylight. ]

I’m not an early riser, and the late afternoon vision of the majestic, rarest bird in modern American ornithology left me unable to sleep. I was up late talking with another sister who had let me stay at her house in Wiscasset, minutes from the sea eagle’s range. Although I set my alarm for seven a.m., my internal clock opened my eyes abruptly at 6:45, the vivid memory of the sea eagle clearing the haze of slumber.

Within minutes, a very efficient birder posted the location of the sea eagle!

The viewing location was 43.8479772, −69.6445619, the coordinates of a birder’s sighting of a lifetime

The sea eagle was a star that seemed to seek privacy, aloof from admirers, briefly perching during days, and flying by, now suddenly revealing itself in the morning light for all to see.

It was miraculous!

To this, you might say, “he’s just an excited birder overreacting to the sight of a bird in a tree.”

But this was unlike any eagle most have ever seen, massive in every way, with a large-plumed chestnut breast; huge, full white tail and epaulets; piercing eyes; a spiked crest; and a disproportionately enormous yellow–orange sharp menacing beak!

And this was more than ideal, it was one of those moments in any endeavor when each aspect combines toward perfection.

Having created quite a stir among national and international birding communities, the sea eagle had attracted photographers, scientists, and professional ornithologists to Boothbay Harbor from as far away as California, Florida, Canada, and beyond.

These enthusiasts joined with crowds of locals from the surrounding communities of Maine and other New England states, all excited to get a glimpse of this once-in-history visiting phenomenon.

They had trickled into the area after the New Year’s Day sightings southwest at Georgetown, one of a series of finger-like glacially formed peninsulas along Midcoast Maine, increasing in numbers each day like a domino effect of human curiosity mimicking a seagull’s irresistible call alerting all others to a fish dinner.

Now, there they were, at birding’s biggest show.

The sun was out; the “bird of birds” sat on a limb of a tall pine in clear view, impervious, high above, overlooking the frozen pond, Boothbay Harbor, and the gathering ant farm of humans below.

Guardrails of a causeway and the wooded edge at the human’s side of the pond kept the scurrying enthusiasts at bay. Parking was available everywhere, at a tennis court, post office, and along the harbor street.

This was on a Saturday morning of a winter holiday weekend.

My sister from Wiscasset, having awoken, joined in the hours-long extravaganza. And she also viewed the sea eagle days later while it wowed crowds at nearby Pemaquid Harbor for more hours, perched in a tree before a flyover, like it had done in Georgetown weeks before, to the cheers of its adoring admirers.

Eventually, as the morning hours passed by, yonder sea eagle ruffled its feathers, hopped with a pirouette on its pine balance beam, hunched, seemed to bow, and gave a glance this way and that to the crowd. Then with a laissez-faire departure, the sea eagle dropped effortlessly out of the towering tree and into the shivering cold and with a few waves from its eight-foot wingspan bid the humans adieu, drifting over the trees into the forest.

Waking the next morning to an epilogue of one of life’s odysseys, I shook the great sea eagle from its dreamy roost off my back. Yet, its image and memory are felt in a broader communal sense, no longer seen only in an old man’s dreams somewhere beyond the horizon in the Far East. Now, new memories loom as large as wonders from the Himalayas in the artist’s youth, as far from home as with our traveling avian hero.

There was no rush that day to see the sea eagle, who each day seems to choose who gets to see it, whether a crowd, an individual, or no-one.

Time was taken for coffee and breakfast, rather than having it on the run, and a walk was enjoyed downtown in the harbor for the first time. All the other time was spent searching the harbor’s natural surroundings for the sea eagle.

But the sea eagle was sighted yet again, this time on Mouse Island between two prominent peninsulas, south of the bridge that spans the Gut. Online posts showed it had been south from its current location minutes before and made stops in its recognizable mapped pattern from prior days. So, having an idea to get ahead of the sea eagle, I drove to where it would make its next flyby.

It was cold but beautiful standing in the sun on the bridge, with no wind, repeating the words, “keep looking up and toward the south” and practicing raising the binoculars and camera in trial runs to make sure I would be ready for the sea eagle’s arrival.

Our patterns and outlines mean nothing to the sea eagle.

We operate with concepts such as “time going by” and “seconds” and “minutes” as measures.

The sea eagle has a different design.

There is no need for clocks or minutes or what’s called time. It is at one with its environment and with people from a distance, who watch so as to capture the sea eagle’s image and spirit and to make it “live in memory.”

And as a human’s “minutes” go by, five, ten, twenty, with eyes to the sky, palette in mind, and camera in hand, the sea eagle pauses, basking in the sun at little Mouse Island with distant admirers watching until simply ready. And with all the human plans, the sea eagle was not to reveal itself this time. It was instead imagined with an all-knowing smile on its almost humorously large beak. For having waited in the path of the sea eagle, practiced moves with binoculars and camera, and kept eyes to the sky for the better part of half an hour, the curious human looked down to check their phone for the sea eagle’s location in the very moment of its presence. And in that moment, the sea eagle, flying fast, quiet, and designed for stealth, passed overhead. Later, it’s seen in a blurred photograph taken by someone who caught it flying away because he was looking down at his car door and then looked up, glimpsing the majestic sea eagle flying over the bridge, just above the artist’s head. Now, with the grand plan to capture an image of the sea eagle in flight not meant to be, the mystery of the majestic visitor from far away is left behind, in the memories and images of days before and the silent wind beneath the sea eagle’s wings.

Notes: When the sea eagle is sighted, go and see it. It may give you a sign. A “spirit animal” is an animal that chooses you! This mysterious animal may have chosen a generation on Midcoast Maine.

Kevin Shea is a third generation artist of Maine; his father and grandfather having painted extensively in Boothbay Harbor (kevinsheafineart.com).