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Sat 05 May 2004My own private oceanOn a squeaky-clean weekend in Sligo, Jane Powers languishes in the 'warm, gelatinous soup' of a seaweed bath.'You don't mind if I hide?" says Lothar Muschketat, biologist and bird-handler, and owner of Eagles Flying, a raptor research centre in Co Sligo. And he runs to a shrubby corner behind an aviary. His teenage son, Alex, is about to let loose Alaska, the American bald eagle. And Alaska doesn't like Lothar in her territory. When she rises into the air, I pray that she doesn't take against me. She is a huge, dark bird, with a two-and-a-half-metre wingspan, a cold eye, and a strong, cruel beak. She disappears out of sight, but reappears, winging darkly - oh no! - towards us. She changes her mind at the last minute and lands on a rock. She eyeballs Alex, calling to him with a strangely girlish, high-pitched chirrup. He swings the lure, and coaxes until she flings herself into a dive, taking the bait, and nearly knocking him over with the force of her flight.