On 4/12/10 I took a series of photos from the walkway at Pt. Edwards looking down on the grounds of the old oil?storage facility.?? A juvenile bald eagle (probably 1-2 years old)??flew in from the north, then swooped down low behind some trees?on the ground below us.? It disappeared for only 2-3 seconds, then emerged with something in?its talons.?? It?transfered?the prey?to its mouth in midflight and carried it that way into some trees on the south side of the marsh.??

I e-mailed the photos to a friend and fellow Edmonds bird photographer.? I could not make out what the prey was from a close crop of one of?the photos, but she thought it looked like a hawk.

Two days ago I met a couple in Marina Park who live in the Pt. Edwards condos by the walkway where I took the photos.? When the topic of conversation turned to our local eagles ,?they said one of their neighbors witnessed a red-tailed hawk getting taken out by an eagle.? Once again I sent the photos to my friend with a report of what the?couple had told me.? She?forwarded them to Kevin Mack, who?made these observations:

"It looks like the juvie is carrying the left wing of a Red-tailed Hawk. The humerus is bare and that is what the eagle has in his beak in the last two photos. The rest of the wing is still feathered."

The juvie must have scavanged the wing from an?old kill it found (or left?) lying on the ground, as it did not make an aerial kill in front?of us and it would not have had time enough to strip the bone clean in the 2-3 seconds it was hidden from our sight.?

I know Kevin Mack is a member? of Tweeters and I want to thank him for taking the time to look at my photos.
Bill Anderson; Edmonds, WA.