In the winter of '96, I watched a mated pair of BAEA's hunting a large raft
of scoters in Padilla Bay from March Point. They had a pretty effective
strategy worked out. The two eagles were perched together on a channel
marker about two hundred yards out. I watched one (the female, I believe)
fly from her perch high over the large flock (about 70-80). It was obvious
the ducks were very nervous at her flyover, watching her warrily. A few were
flushed, but settled back down as she passed by to the southwest. Amazingly,
as I watched her, she flew on about a half mile and circled around, then
dropped to the surface of the bay. She made a strafing run at the same flock
she'd flown over and snatched a duck right off the surface of the water,
clean as a whistle. She flew back to the perch with her prey. When the male
tried to move in for a bite, she ran him off. Twenty minutes later, after
the flock had settled back down again (extremely limited attention span), he
tried the same strategy and scored for himself. For real.

Joe Mackie
jmackie at cc.wwu.edu
Bellingham, WA