I would like to suggest, that based on my personal observations, that Bald Eagles are great fishers and hunters but that they are also, when opportunity provides, lazy and without discriminating tastes.

Dennis Rockwell
Kennewick, WA
dennisrockwell at dwwireless.net

----- Original Message -----
From: Hans-Joachim Feddern
To: Martin Muller
Cc: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Sent: Thursday, December 10, 2009 9:41 PM
Subject: Re: [Tweeters] Re: Bald Eagle Fishing Techniques


Tweeters,

Most literature will state that the Bald Eagle is not very good at fishing. It prefers carrion such as spawned out salmon along the Skagit River. I have seen them a couple of times here over Twin Lakes pursuing Ospreys carrying fish. I had one incident this summer, which ended when the Osprey dropped the fish after some amazing aerial combat. The eagle caught the fish in mid-air before it hit the water.
A few years back I watched an adult Bald Eagle chase a single Cackling Goose over the marina at Damon Point - Ocean Shores. Whenever the eagle was just about to grab the goose, the goose would sense it and cut in the "burner". The second time around, I swear that I could see the eagles tongue hanging out! The chase ended, when the goose wisely decided to fly under the telephone wire at the motel there and the eagle had to pull up at the last minute to avoid colliding with the wire. This gave the goose enough head start to escape.

I also watched a three way chase when rounding a curve east of Prineville, Oregon on the way home from Malheur NWR. A Prairie falcon was carrying a ground squirrel with a Bald Eagle and a Golden Eagle in hot pursuit. Normally the falcon would out-fly the eagles, but it was handicapped carrying its prey. The falcon decided it was smarter than the two brutes and dropped the ground squirrel in a field. Both eagles dove for it, but the slightly larger Golden won.

Good Birding!

Hans Feddern
Twin Lakes/Federal Way.WA>


On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 8:46 PM, Martin Muller <martinmuller at msn.com> wrote:

Bill,

Bald Eagles most of the time swooping low over the water and pick prey up off the surface without too getting wet.
However, they have many more methods in their repertoire and will dive, or walk, into water to retrieve food. They may land on top of a prey item (coot for instance), and float on the surface while squeezing and drowning the coot.
I've heard reports of eagles swimming to shore, dragging large prey items onto shore with them.
They may pursue other birds in order to make them relinquish the food they are carrying (gulls, Osprey, cormorants). The eagle may pick the dropped item up out of the water, or simply do a barrel roll and catch the item in mid-air, depending on the situation.
Young eagles (as young of most species) will do unusual things, including pretending to be an Osprey. After all that niche is empty in this area around this time of year :)

The above is based on literature as well as many hundreds of hours of observing eagles in the Seattle area and other parts of western WA. I'm sure there are many different observations of other more unusual hunting techniques by Bald Eagles. I would start by checking the Birds of North America account on the Bald Eagle, specifically the Food and Feeding section.

Martin Muller, Seattle
martinmuller at msn.com



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