What a show!

By The Gazette Editorial Board

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Our modern, hectic lifestyle is often blamed for lessening our respect of the great outdoors. Then Mother Nature's extreme measures, such as tornadoes and floods, remind us that we best not ignore her. We also miss out on some of the best parts of life.

Fittingly, a blend of modern technology and bald eagles is providing a much kinder and gentler way to re-connect with nature. Over the weekend, as two bald eagles became parents in a huge nest perched 80 feet up a tree near the Decorah Fish Hatchery in Northeast Iowa, the interest exploded worldwide. The eagle cam installed by the Raptor Resource Project relayed video to a website that drew so many viewers - well over 100,000 at any given time - that it briefly crashed when the first eaglet emerged Saturday from one of the three eggs being tended.

Individual website hits passed 11 million by weekend's close, and the action continues to draw a huge audience - teachers and students, parents and kids, office workers, and many others. Watching the natural world move at its own pace is, yes, fascinating, and soothing.

Thanks to director Bob Anderson and others in the raptor project for their efforts to reconnect and educate us. To watch the eagles, get more information or donate to the cause, visit www.raptorresource.org.