Maybe we have it all wrong. Maybe humans are not the highest form of life on the planet after all. I was watching a dozen bald eagles and their immatures this morning, thinking to myself what an amazing thing to come back as in a next life, given the choice. Then I thought I should be so lucky. These magnificent birds of Bella Coola have the universe by their claws. They live in as close a place to paradise as anyone's ever going to see short of crossing over, they perch in high trees on the protected banks of the clean and fast-flowing glacier-fed Bella Coola River screeching thier high-pitched calls to one other, preening and drying their feathers in the sun and riding the thermals up and down the river valley at whim. Food is never a concern, just a way of life. When they feel like it, they simply take a quick pass over the narrows and nab a little salmon sushi from the abundant flow.

I watched for hours, trying to capture a close-up photo, but ultimately becoming too swept up in the whoosh of their great expanse of wings and giant shadows above to care about photography. As I stared down one particularly beautiful bird high up in a giant pine tree, I wondered to myself: Who's observing who? Maybe she was watching me, thinking to herself: "That's right baby, you, too could become one of us if you learn your lessons well this time around."