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When it comes to learning to appreciate the all-too-familiar, just leave it to a toddler to bring the familiar wide-eyed wonderment. In looking for something fun and interactive to take my one-year-old daughter to this weekend, I stumbled across the Bald Eagle Day exhibit at a nearby park in the paper's activity listings.

After bundling up my daughter, Faith, to the point that she looked like a pink marshmallow with legs, I found myself anticipating the impending experience. After all, I had never really seen a Bald Eagle up close.

Upon arriving at the snow blanketed park, we walked toward the exhibit area and never quite made it inside the Bald Eagle show. It was too exciting outside, where my daughter was enthralled by the bird handlers' hawk and falcon. As I held Faith near the birds, she was initially a little frightened, burying her head into my shoulder whenever the Peregrine Falcon looked in her direction. But after a few moments, she began to warm up to the birds.

It wasn't long before she noticed that the falcon's eyes looked strangely similar to her baby doll's eyes ... eyes she likes to poke. (I guess beady eyes all look alike to toddlers.) That's when I saw her finger emerge and began moving directly toward a collision course with the falcon's eye. I quickly stepped backward to avoid disaster, like a talon to the face.

What I learned in between closely studying the falcon and keeping my daughter from gouging out the falcon's eye was fascinating. The art of falconry has been around for more than 2,500 years and is uniquely tied to conservation efforts today. As ironic as it may seem, falconers are as passionate about making sure birds of prey are around to keep the food chain in proper working order as they are about training their birds. The Peregrine Fund is a great organization that is working hard to ensure these birds' survival.

In the end, I never did get to see a Bald Eagle up close, but I have a new appreciation for these birds that swoop down and snatch little rodents off the ground. They're as regal and majestic on the ground as they are in the air—and I hope they never find themselves on the brink of extinction.