"Royal Bird of the Skies"," In a high crotch there is a great platform of sticks, some of them as long as an Indian's bow and as thick as a man's wrist, woven together as carefully and firmly as the twigs in the nest of a catbird.
So wide and solid is this structure a deer might lie upon it in comfort.
I almost said ""my friend Sky-King,"" because that is I have come to regard him that May day when first I saw him, a regal, white-headed sentinel perched in his lookout.
Buckling on climbers and safety ropes, I started up.
That nest was a marvel of construction, woven painstakingly, and of material worthy of a king's home.
Under the nest the ground was carpeted with a thick tangle of the dead sticks, dropped by the eagles while at work.
Three white eggs, nearly round, and a little larger than a duck's egg, were bedded in the heap of soft dry grass in the center of the nest.
There were weeks of warm spring days, during which I thought often of the mother eagle, motionless and alert at her tedious but happy task, and of sky king perched on the spruce spar, keeping watchful guard.
I did not blame them that they had resented my intrusion.
