Yesterday Ann Marie Wood, Steve Pink, David Poortinga and I birded in Jefferson and Clallam Counties. It was a beautiful day with bright sunshine, low temperatures and snow on the ground until mid-afternoon.
We successfully found the SPOTTED SANDPIPER at Shine Tidelands but despite a good tide, other good birds and diligent looking we were not able to locate the RED KNOT at Fort Flagler. Our consolation prizes there were several ICELAND (Thayer's) GULLS, a BLACK OYSTERCATCHER, and a HERRING GULL. On the way to Sequim we had the first of two TURKEY VULTURES - first of year for all of us. At Dungeness Landing Park the tide was out but we were able to find 20 MARBLED GODWITS and the continuing WILLET. Later we found the REDHEAD on a small pond on Simdars Road in Sequim.
The highlight of the day, however, was an exciting and dramatic hunt we witnessed at Dungeness Landing Park. Incredibly exciting!!:
The Bayhad many ducks of several species. There was about to be one fewer. An adult Bald Eagle appeared on the scene -; scattering theducks from the water. It focused on a single one in the chaos chasing itas it tried to avoid being caught. It was a female NorthernPintail. Then a second adult Eagle joined the huntand after a moment or so, one of the Eagles struck the Pintail knockingit to the water. The chase had been exciting to watch and it now got moreexciting and dramatic. Pintails are dabbling ducks, notdiving ducks. They can submerge but do so only briefly. They feedby tilting down and grabbing food below the surface with their long necks. Iexpect the Eagles knew this behavior both in selecting thetarget initially and also in the strategy they then employed for the kill.
In thewater the Pintail would submerge briefly as the Eagles tookturns diving at it from above. Each time the Pintail resurfaced,an eagle would dive at it again. This continued at least a dozentimes. Finally the Pintail tired and remained on thesurface just a bit longer. This time one of the Eagles grabbedit with its talons and flew off. After afew seconds as the Eagles swerved and cartwheeled together,the capturing Eagle dropped its prize and, still alive, the Pintail fellto the water. But it was not going to escape. Exhausted andprobably in shock and injured, it was picked up quickly by one of the Eagles(wedidn't note if it was the original captor) and again carried it away.
This timethe second Eagle flew off on its own while the victor flew toa nearby piling in the water. It called -; perhaps proclaiming itsconquest -; and then began its meal. We werespellbound by the episode which took place maybe 100-150 yards away. Forawhile it had appeared that the Pintail might escape -; firstthe chase and then the capture. The Eagles were moreadept fliers than I had expected and the tactics used to tire the non-divingduck were impressive. Predator and prey -; one of nature's basiclaws. Eagles are often and rightfully seen asscavengers. This Eagle was a supreme hunter.
I was able to capture some of the action in photographs that can be seen at www.flickr.com/photos/
127293169 at N07/albums/72157692046792481
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Eagle Taking Northern Pintail
Bald Eagles taking a Female Northern Pintail at Dungeness Landing Park, February 22, 2018
|
|
|
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <
http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20180224/9d76a03e/attachment.html>