Rob,
Do you think it is an Old Wives' Tale? I thought that means it isn't true.
(You know, "If you keep crying like that your throat will turn black"--one
from my grandmother!) Last year I took a cruise up to Glacier Bay and a
lecturer, a retired teacher from an Alaskan village, asked the group to
guess what kills the most Bald Eagles in AK. Her answer was "the salmon."
She went on to say that when eagles get their talons locked onto an
excessively heavy salmon, they can't release the prey, so they get pulled
under the water and drowned. I just assumed this is accurate. One local
incident is that 3 or 4 years ago, someone brought a dead adult eagle into
the SAS Nature Shop. It had two young crows, one locked in each foot. The
assumption was that it had been killed by a mob of crows defending those
young. SAS doesn't have the proper license to accept eagles, so it was
referred over to the Burke Museum, where a necropsy was done--reportedly the
eagle appeared to be healthy until its demise.

Maybe a raptor expert will reply as to whether the eagle cannot unlock its
grasp until it is on the ground (which is what the Alaska lecturer said) or
whether it is a matter of having punctured the prey with the talons and
being unable to "work" free (as opposed to simply releasing the prey.)

Penny Koyama, Bothell
plkoyama at verizon.net


----- Original Message -----
From: "Rob Sandelin" <floriferous at msn.com>
To: "'Tweeters'" <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Friday, June 09, 2006 7:59 AM
Subject: RE: [Tweeters] The Dalliance of the Eagles


I saw this same behavior once at Padilla bay, two eagles, locked up
together both came crashing down into the mudflat. Eventually one got up and
walked away to higher ground, the other did not. The tide came in and
covered the dead bird, the living bird flew away when I was not looking at
it.

One of the things I heard once which sounds to me is probably old wives tale
is that eagles can't open their talons unless there is something their
"palm" can push on. The old wives tale is eagles then drowning from catching
too big a fish which swimming in the water does not give the needed amount
of pressure to release the talon. In light of this notion, maybe eagles
talons get locked and they can't unlock before hitting the ground?


Rob Sandelin
Naturalist, Writer
The Environmental Science School
http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm
><((((?>`?..?`?..?`?...><((((?>...?`?..?`?...><((((?>.?`?..?`?...><((((?>.?`
?..?`?...><((((?>?.. ><((((?>
?`?..?`?...?..?`><((((?>.?`?..?`?...><((((?>.?`?..?`?...><((((?>..?`?..?`?..
><((((?>?.. ?`?..?`?....?`?..?`?...><((((?>


--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.8.3/359 - Release Date: 6/8/2006


_______________________________________________
Tweeters mailing list
Tweeters at u.washington.edu
http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters