Subject: Inner Harbor, Vancouver BC 1/21/96
Date: Jan 21 22:50:48 1996
From: Michael Price - mprice at mindlink.bc.ca


Hi Tweets,

A few hours woolgathering out the windows of the Canada Place cafeteria
overlooking Vancouver BC's Inner Harbor just to the E of Stanley Pk.
Interesting Bald Eagle interactions. Also saw what for me is the first
*pristine* alternate-plumaged bird of 1996 (not counting ducks), a
shiny-new Pelagic Cormorant.

Conditions: broken low cloud; winds E to NE 10-20 km/hr; temp 3 Celsius;
sea state 2. Light snow covering remaining from day before. First snowfall
and seriously cold weather in weeks (as an indication that some freshwater
sites in the Fraser Valley have frozen over, on Lost Lagoon in Stanley Pk.,
there were 20+ Ring-necked Ducks and close to 5-6,000 Lesser Scaup on Lost
Lagoon, a typical increase when icing over of their ponds and sloughs
displaces these birds out to the coast.

Common Loon 2 (basic plumage)
Horned Grebe 2 (bsc)
Western Grebe 9
Aechmophorus Grebe sp. 28
Double-crested Corm. 3 (2a, 1 jv)
Brandt's Cormorant 2a
Pelagic Cormorant 4a (1 def. alt)
Cormorant sp. 7
Mallard 2 (1m, 1f; separate)
Barrow's Goldeneye 8 (4m 4f)
Duck sp. (in flight) 19 (prob. goldeneyes) Red-breasted Merganser 4 (2
pairs, both males displaying)
Bald Eagle* 9 (6a, 3 jv)
Mew Gull 21 (19a, 2 bsc1)
Glaucous-winged Gull 58 (47a, 11 imm)
Western X Glaucous-w. 5a
Gull sp. 1 (poss. a bsc 1 California)
Rock Dove 7
Northwestern Crow 26 (in overflights to Stanley Pk.)
European Starling 2

*Of the 9 Bald Eagles, 7 (4a, 3 jv) were in view at once all moving east at
altitude. An adult Baldie came over from Stanley Pk and attacked a juv
(white-belly phase) eagle which was desultorily hunting grebes or gulls out
in the middle of the harbor. After the usual aerobatics of harassment for
several minutes, the juvenile flipped over, grabbed the adult's talons, and
the two tumbled vertically almost a hundred meters through the air in
what's more usually seen as the 'talon-lock' courtship flight of adults. No
fluke: this happened three more times, the last instance resulting a
vertical spiralling tumble of at least two hundred meters. Really cool.
After this, the adult flew back to the park, a distance of a couple of
kilometers by then.

So, I'm curious. Did the courtship display evolve from the young birds'
protective tactic? Seems a reasonable assumption. And when the adults are
in initial position to begin their 'talon-lock' display --and there's
simply no delicate way to ask this to satisfy what I will assure the
dubious is a non-prurient curiosity-- who's usually on top?

Michael Price "Are you being brilliant or are you going berserk?
Vancouver BC Canada At first, sometimes, it may be hard to tell."
mprice at mindlink.net -New York Times headline