In Turners Falls, Massachusetts, the folks are all a-flutter about a few birds. The local cable television channel broadcasts a live, but usually not very lively, image of sticks stuffed in the nook of a dead white pine tree. But every now and then a bald eagle, sometimes two, flies into the picture, and the sticks become a nest.
Folks run for their TV screens or grab a phone to call friends.
The televised drama climaxed last spring when a first televised batch of eagles' eggs failed to hatch after a heavy snowstorm. Now people are waiting to see what happens with a new set of eggs, and how the parents, one of just nine pairs of nesting bald eagles in the state, react.