[Tweeters] Drama on the Dock

[Hans-Joachim Feddern via Tweeters]

We once watched an adult Bald Eagle at the park just north of Steilacoom
trying to to catch a female Common Goldeneye. Whenever the eagle swooped in
for the kill, the goldeneye would dive. Unfortunately she would always
surface within a small circle and the eagle knew this and was right on her.
If she would have only resurfaced with some distance, the eagle would have
not known where to attack next. The duck eventually tired and stayed on the
surface a little too long and the eagle got her. Here again the eagle was
unable to lift off the water with it’s prey and ended up “rowing” with a
lot of wing flapping about a 100 yards to shore where it started plucking
the hard earned lunch.

*Hans Feddern*
Twin Lakes/Federal Way, WA
thefedderns at gmail.com


On Sun, Dec 22, 2024 at 5:03 PM Jon Houghton via Tweeters <
tweeters at u.washington.edu> wrote:


> Hi Tweets - Last week we witnessed an interesting look at how nature and

> Bald Eagles work. We were on the end of the Edmonds fishing pier watching

> an adult eagle make repeated low passes at a specific point in the water,

> extending its legs and talons into the water at the nadir of each pass.  On

> about the fourth pass, we noticed a quick appearance at the surface by

> Red-necked Grebe which had been the target all along, unseen by us, but

> obviously seen by the eagle each time it approached the surface for a

> breath. On that last pass, the eagle nailed it and held it underwater, with

> the eagle's body about half underwater itself.  The eagle then did a breast

> stroke, using its wings in a rotating motion, to drag its still unseen prey

> to the breakwater where he hauled it out and devoured it.  I've seen eagles

> do this before when they capture a salmon too large to fly with.  Happy

> Birding!

>

> Jon Houghton, Edmonds

> _______________________________________________

> Tweeters mailing list

> Tweeters at u.washington.edu

> http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters

>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20241222/679c0760/attachment.html>