Rescued baby bald eagles start new lives

STARVED ROCK STATE PARK, Ill. -- This crowd did not gather for a ballgame or a protest, or to gawk at some sort of disaster. They came to the banks of the sleepy Illinois River to witness a little miracle -- a happy ending, or an anxious beginning, depending on how you look at it.

Two young bald eagles were about to be released into the wild, more than five months after a storm blew them 85 feet to the ground from their nest, high atop a tree in suburban Chicago.

The crowd of hundreds watched eagerly as a small ferry came around a bend in the river and into view.

On it were a group of naturalists with two shrouded crates that carried the eagles. They were headed for Plum Island, about 100 yards from the crowd that had gathered at Starved Rock State Park in rural Northern Illinois.

As the crew carefully, and quietly, brought the crates onto land, the onlookers cheered, and readied their cameras.

"Great day," Dawn Keller said as she looked up at the blue sky on Nov. 12, a warm, sunny day.

Keller is the executive director of Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation, an organization based in the Chicago area that rescued the eagles on Memorial Day. Both males, they were about 6 weeks old at the time.

Keller and her army of volunteers have rescued wild animals and countless birds -- hawks, turkey vultures, owls. But this was the first time they'd rehabilitated eaglets and helped them learn to fly. Indeed, the fact that this release was happening in a state like Illinois is a testament to how far the bald eagle, once in danger of extinction, has come in the past 40 years.

"Good luck, baby," Keller said, as the first eagle extended its already impressive wings and flew out of her arms.

It soared over the crowd, then disappeared into a forest of oak and hickory trees on the island.

"Good luck, buddy," she said to the other, which made a bee line for that same forest.