Kevin,

Thanks for reporting the Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) with crow
(Corvus brachyrhynchos, I assume) nestling near Seattle. In the past I've
seen the male eagle at Discovery Park raid nearby crow nests also. It
appears to be an acquired taste ;)

Any chance your friend noted whether the eagle was a full adult or had brown
on head and tail? If it was indeed one of the Green Lake eagles that would
tell us whether it was the male (full adult) or female (sub-adult).

Of course there are so many eagles around, unless the eagle was seen flying
to the nest, it could have been a different eagle. Any chance it was seen
flying to the nest?

I've noticed different behavior in the Green Lake eagles when it comes to
crows. The male will scream at the crows when they dive-bomb him. When he
perches in a tree away from the nest tree he carefully chooses a perch
surrounded by branches so the crows cannot actually hit him. He will still
scream at them. On several occasions I've seen him chase crows and get very
close. The female, on the other hand, will totally ignore crows. The other
day she was eating (old unidentifiable bird remnants) in a tree south of the
nest and 4 crows dove at her hitting her tail and back. She just kept on
eating. Later, after the female finished her meal, she perched upright. One
crow flew in from behind her and repeatedly (12 times that I saw) hit the
primaries protruding past the female's tail, causing the whole wing to move
forward slightly. In the past I've seen eagles loose their balance due to
this kind of crow bombardment. This eagle apparently just relaxed her wing
enough that the blows did not upset her balance. Must be frustrating for the
crows to have this little effect. After 12 minutes the crows had all
left....

Martin Muller, Seattle
MartinMuller at email.msn.com