"I wish I could touch it," he said.

Go ahead, I offered, turning the eagle in my hands sideways so it wasn't staring straight at his face. His hand came up slowly, carefully, to touch the stiff feathers of one wing. And then moved up to lightly pet those wonderful, delicate golden-tipped feathers on its head.

His mother, no longer able to resist, put down her cell phone camera and also ran her fingers through the bird's tinted mane. The eagle tolerated their touch as most eagles do. I've had only one, the one previous to this one, ever try to bite.

And then we were off. Them down the interstate to the state science fair, where he would explain to judges his study of the effectiveness of different greases on skateboard wheels, presumably as aptly as he quickly summarized it to me, and I on my two-hour drive to deliver their rescued eagle with the broken wing to the raptor rehabilitators in Central City.

And such were my Sunday plans changed.