Over the weekend, I took my 7-year-old son Jack, to Conowingo Dam in northeastern Maryland for our now annual excursion. We gathered with hundreds of other people along the Harford County shore of the Susquehanna River.

Lots of the other visitors were photographers, but all of us had our eyes trained to the skies. For a moment, it was breathlessly quiet. And then Jack spotted what we came to see. And the whole crowd caught wind of it.

Together, we marveled as a stunning bald eagle soared over the river below the dam and then skimmed the surface of the water to snag a wriggling fish in its talons.