Fall River’s Cook Pond Bald Eagle Is a Show Stopper

For the past few months I've noticed a giant bird flying over the McGovern’s area in Fall River, mostly above the Cook Pond area in the back.

The first few times I just thought it was a hawk and never paid it much mind, but the other day this bird came down past my car and landed in the grassy field at the old Ponta Delgada. With nowhere to go on a rainy Saturday, I pulled over to do some good old fashioned investigating.

This big ol’ bird was indeed a bald eagle and it was amazing. I parked the car and watched it take off and fly around in circles for another 20 minutes, hoping it would land again. My kids and I watched as tiny birds tried to attack it and it flew on, unconcerned. I tried to explain how rare it was to see this giant bird of prey, especially given that we were a stone’s throw from a super busy commercial area and not in some wildlife preserve miles from nowhere.

Maybe it's because I've spent the better part of the past 15 months looking out my window at sparrows, robins, and the occasional turkey buzzards, but I've come to take a real liking to birds. I have the baths, the suet, the hummingbird feeders, and the whole nine. I'm all in, as my friends would say.

I know all of the memes about watching the bird feeders really speak to me lately so I guess this is just who I am now: a bird watcher.

It just felt extra special to spend Memorial Day Weekend watching a bald eagle glide effortlessly through the sky. It certainly put to shame any of those other tiny birds I've been catering to all year.

A quick Google search confirms the bird is, in fact, a bald eagle, and notes sightings in the area including the eagle chicks along the North Watuppa Pond in 2006. A representative from MassWildlife confirmed to me that there is a "successful pair of bald eagles" with a nest on North Watuppa and that is likely what I saw.

If you too are a bird watcher, novice or advanced, I recommend you take the trip down to the Cook’s Pond area. If you're lucky, you'll see two; I swear we did. But you know what they say: pics or it never happened.