Seattle has had peregrine falcons nesting atop the Washington Mutual building since 1995.

Cool. I'm going to buy a bald eagle vanity plate for my Ford Excursion.

When I lived about 30 miles south of DC and a mile west of I-95, there was a nesting pair barely more than a stone's throw from my house.

You don't suppose the Sierra Club is wailing, gnashing teeth, and rending garments over this report, do you?

Here in downtown Redmond, Upper Left Washington, for years I've seen hawks looking for rodents and other small birds. The one that used a particular tree branch across the street as a perch seems to be gone, alas.

The urbanization of this continent was a sudden disruption of an equilibrium that was established at the ice retreated. One of the things the Gaeans have never understood, despite their supposed reverence for nature, is how nature works. What we are seeing now, with bears and cougars and raptors appearing in urbanized areas is a new equilibrium being established, and that can take a century or two. And like the old one, it will change over time.

(The whole "wolf reintroduction" in Yellowstone was a race against the wolves reintroducing themselves. The problem with that was that only their imported Canadian wolves would provide steady employment to wolf researchers of the kind enjoyed by the bear, bison, elk and fish researchers.)

What's even more amusing are the people who move to rural areas, only to have to deal with coyotes, racoons, deer and all sorts of other unmanaged wildlife.They've discovered that if you move somewhere to get closer to Nature, Nature gets closer to you.

If I were the eagles I leave town before they are accused of being part of the cubs hexx.

Up in northern Minnesota bald eagles are everywhere. Last summer I was fishing at Lake Thistledew in a boat with nary a nibble on my line for 2 hours. I was watching an of eagle in a large nest in dead tree on the shoreline to pass the time. My boat drifted to within about 50 yards. Suddenly it launched itself, swooped and dived, and caught a 4 lb bass almost immediately, and headed back to the nest and looked and me with its wiggling catch in its mouth.

Bastard show-off.

I live a half-mile from Emory in Atlanta. I've had hawks swoop over my car as I pulled into the driveway. Last week in the late afternoon I was walking down Lullwater road, and there was an enormous owl sitting in a Cedar of Lebanon, hooting loudly.

And then there's the recurrent midnight raids into the cat's bowl by possums & raccoons.

Many of those eagles in Minnesota spend their winter in a park in Red Wing, which is a town along the Mississippi. The town's powerplant discharges warm water into the river, which keeps it ice free near the park, and makes it a perfect fishing ground. Once again, civilization clashes with nature.

I am confussed. I thought that this could not happen, that Man had destroyed nature. That only "weed" species like rats could live in cities. The ecology guys promised me. I feel cheated.