On Fri, 27 Aug 1999 MBlanchrd at aol.com wrote:

> I personally counted at least 18 eagles at once, all sitting together quite
> happily on the mudflats at Nisqually. Several were adults. The resident pair
> was sitting in their nest tree at the same time.

I am not terribly surprised at the numbers of eagles being seen at Nisqually.
I learned this past spring that eagles are now year-around denizens of
the landfill, just over the hill from the Nisqually. A count of 10 or 20 at
the landfill might be possible at if you got the right viewpoint. I am,
however, puzzled about how anyone could determine that 26 separate eagles
were engaged in raids on the heronry there. Either they would have to be
carefully noting plumage characteristics that differentiate each individual
eagle or they would have to be seeing the eagles, all at once, attacking as
a "flock".

I know that territorial adult eagles are less likely to defend their feeding
territories against incursions by subadults but a bunch of "foreigner"
adults coming in and feeding right next to the McAllister Creek pair's
nest would be out-of-the-ordinary.

Well, Tom will be getting back to us.

Bye,

Kelly McAllister