Sally, et al.
I spend many, many hours observing bald eagles for the state in the Bald Eagle Management program.
In the early days I was surprised to see the ongoing conflict among various raptors.? It seems that they do NOT just 'live and let live' when sharing habitat.
ald eagles will often steal baby osprey and may also steal their nests!? Since the eagle returns to the area in the winter to begin courting and nesting behavior and the osprey doesn't return until much later in the spring, it is quite easy for an eagle to set up housekeeping in an osprey nest unoccupied.? When the osprey return and find the eagle using their nest they are not very pleased.
he osprey do try to retake the territory, usually unsuccessfully and will continue to discourage the eagle from staying or getting too comfortable in the osprey's old nest.? The osprey often will also build
new nest in the general vicinity and continue aggravating the 'Hatfield and McCoy' relationships.
here are two eagle/osprey territories on Bainbridge Island where these two species are still doing battle.? It may be years before a winner is declared.
I also quite often see various other hawk species ?mobbing? bald eagles, both at their nest and at their perch trees.? Most recently a harrier, a red tail hawk, coopers, and one third party report of a peregrine.?
All can potentially roust the eagle for short periods of time.? Perhaps long enough to may the nest fail due to untended eggs or young.?
?
As a wildlife rehabilitator I have rescued and treated both eagles and osprey who had suffered battle wounds from various encounters. In one case the eagle had taken a baby osprey from the nest and accidentally dropped it onto the pavement of the road below.? (The baby survived and was returned to the nest!).
?
So now I feel that most other raptors don?t much like eagles.? That happens when you are ?king of the hill? and known for your larceny skills!
-Original Message ?----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Today's Topics:
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?? 1. osprey and eagle (Abella, Sally)
-----Original Message-----
Today's Topics:
1. osprey and eagle (Abella, Sally)
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Message: 1
ate: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 12:18:20 -0700
rom: "Abella, Sally" <Sally.Abella at METROKC.GOV>
ubject: [Tweeters] osprey and eagle
o: <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
essage-ID:
<A4F434703B5032419DC148046B58F24505B043A6 at mkey01.kc.kingcounty.lcl>
ontent-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
This may be common, but I haven't seen it before, so I thought I would
hare. Yesterday morning, we were water quality sampling on Pipe Lake in
aple Valley and noticed that a single osprey was persistently swooping
own and harassing a soaring bald eagle, keeping up the pressure until
he eagle finally changed course and quickly headed away from the lake.
e watched for about 5 minutes, and the osprey actually hit the eagle a
ouple of times from above. I've certainly seen lots of mobbing activity
y crows and smaller birds on raptors, but never such persistent attacks
y one species of raptor on another. The odd thing was that as soon as
he eagle left, so did the osprey, so we couldn't figure out if there
as a nest involved somewhere. I didn't notice any prey items either.
ust bad temper on the osprey's part?
ally
Sally Bartley Abella
ake Stewardship Program
ater and Land Resources Division
ing County DNRP
01 S. Jackson St, Ste 600
eattle, WA 98194-3855
hone: 206-296-8382
AX: 206-296-0192
NOTE: my new email address is Sally.Abella at kingcounty.gov
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