Greetings,

With apologies for the delay.
On Sunday, on the topic of Bald Eagle prey, Bud Anderson wrote:
>I'm curious to learn what the rest of you have seen over the years.

A couple of prey species to add:
Western Grebe:
One live one brought to the Discovery Park (Seattle) eagle nest with 2
3-week-old eaglets in it (years ago). Much excitement on the eagle's part.
The male delivered the grebe, the female eventually dispatched it. The young
eagles hunkered down low after initially getting close and getting whacked
in the head by the grebe's flailing wings.
West Seattle eagles also seen eating Western Grebe, but by the time I got
there the grebe was dead.
In the first case I would have loved to see that hunt. There are many
Western Grebes that winter off the Discovery Park bluff and the eagles
appear to take advantage of this food supply. The amazing thing is that I've
repeatedly seen both eagles fly in early in the morning and land in trees on
the bluff. All Western Grebes below became alert at the sight of the
arriving eagles. One eagle landed in the top of a tree on the bluff, plainly
visible, the other would land in a lower tree, up against the bluff. From
the water, with the sun in the east (behind the eagles), only the eagle
against the sky must have been visible. Not once, but at least a dozen
times, I then watched the visible eagle take off and within minutes all the
Western Grebes would relax. Start preening, bathing, courting, or back to
sleep. Looks to me like Western Grebes can't count....

At the same Discovery Park eagle nest, I arrived one day and found the male
STANDING ON TOP of some big bird in the nest. I couldn't see into the nest
(standing on the road down below at a respectful distance) enough to see
more of the bird and identify it. It was obvious he had a big bird up there,
since he was plucking white featheres and throwing them to the wind.
However, I was not ready for how big! As he plucked and ripped he grabbed
the bird behind the head and held it up. Very dark head, with evenly tapered
dagger-like bill, white neck with vertical streaks and solid dark
bands.....Common Loon. Even if it was a small loon, it must have weighed 7
pounds....(loons weigh from 7 - 11 pounds).

Probably the weirdest prey item I've seen an eagle with was a plucked,
uncooked, turkey wing (presumably domestic, since I haven't heard of any
wild turkeys in the Seattle area). Again one of the Discovery Park birds. My
theory is someone saw the bird cruising by and tossed it a BBQ item.

Cottontails (when a disease struck the local rabbit population and several
could be found staggering around in open grass fields).

But mostly fish, both fresh and salt water, and big ones too. Including,
like Ed Newbold reported, fish stolen from a California Sea Lion "playing"
with the fish before consuming it (not in this case). The beauty of that
event was that this was during the time when the Discovery Park eagles were
being monitored by biologists from Parametrix, in order to determine
disturbances (or lack thereof) due to West Point Treatment Plant expansion
work. I believe it was Steve Sweeney who was observing the nest, while I was
down at the beach. He saw the eagle leave and return with a good size fish
not 2 minutes later. I saw the eagle drop out of the sky and scare the
living daylights out of the Sea Lion who was tossing the fish around. The
Sea Lion dove, the eagle returned to its nest with the prized catch. It was
nice whenever we managed to fit our observations together into a coherent
picture like that.

Rock Dove. There are pigeons nesting beneath some of Seattle's waterfront
piers. Fledgling pigeons have to fly out over the water and up once they
clear the pier. Not all of them make it. I've seen eagles pick up casualties
from the water and consume them in three bites and less than 2 minutes (as
opposed to a peregrine who works at a pigeon for 50 minutes).

And last but not least, prey species of note: Crow. And lots of them. Eagles
(both in Discovery Park and at Green Lake) raiding crow's nests and taking
nestling crows to the nestling eagles.

Cheers,
Martin Muller, Seattle
MartinMuller at email.msn.com