Tag Archives: Bald Eagle

Like The Wind

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With powerful strokes of its wings this young Bald Eagle flies barely a wingspan over the cobalt blue water of the Firehole river. Its wings make a strong whooshing sound as the wind rushes through its primary feathers as they complete their cycle. Its flight is close enough to the water that the deep blue color is reflected off the nearly white feathers on its head and tail.

This is a young bird, less than five years old, as it takes that long for its distinctive head and tail feathers to turn completely white. Since the sexes are similar it’s difficult to determine whether it is a male or female. When the males are together with the females, the female is approximately 25% larger, which has earned them the name of “Big Mama’s” by those who don’t know anything about eagles. And which is why many times you will see a female eagle swoop down on a loud heckling tourist and swipe his Tilly hat and deposit it 60′ or more in the top of a pine tree. Being a strong-willed female and a symbol of our country they will not tolerate being made fun of.

Young eagles are left to their own devices pretty much as soon as they start flying. As they are the avian equivalent of teenagers their parents are pretty much sick of them and have sent them out to starve or prosper on their own. They have taught them the rudiments of eagle lore, philosophy and life skills, but from now on it’s up to them.

The young eagles of course believe this to be highly unfair and constantly fly up and down the river calling desperately for their parents to feed them. The parents however having anticipating this, as this isn’t their first eaglet, have decided that this is a good time to visit the coast for a little R&R and are long gone. This eagle will soon discover that it is more productive to look for something to eat than to look for absent parents, and thus its life as a newly minted Bald Eagle begins.

It will be tough for a while as they perfect that snatch and grab thing on unwary trout in the shallows, and after a string of misses they will soon settle for anything dead and edible they can locate. This can be anything from a dead fish washed up along the river bank to roadkill, to unfortunately stooping to raiding the landfill for anything edible. These hapless eagles become the white and black trash of the eagle community and will likely wind up as crack heads or meth addicts. They should have spent more time paying attention to their parents and less time out behind the nest smoking and listening to heavy metal music. But sad as that may be that’s life in the wild kingdom.

This young eagle will probably go on to have a happy and successful life. Why? No reason really, it just looks so good flying along the river that it’ll probably make it. Since, as the writer of this story, I can give it any ending I want, I think today I will give it a happy ending, so good luck young eagle, keep those tail feathers clean. Remember I have editing privileges.

Dawns Early Light

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Why eagles fly. If you’ve ever asked yourself that question I’m sure you’ve come up with the most obvious answer. Because they can. But I think there’s a deeper answer and that is because they want to.

I’m not talking about the fact that they’ve come down the pike genetically designed to fly, or they need to fly to hunt and eat, or to find mates, all the stuff biologists and those other folks who collect facts and figures about them talk about when they describe birds, of course those are reasons.

I’m talking about the feelings that one gets when seeing a bird gliding effortlessly across the sky, hawks riding the thermals or matching the pitch and shape of their wings so that they hover there against the bright blue sky, motionless for as long as they want to be, before swooping down in a breathtaking dive to collect their next meal. Or seeing two Golden eagles performing the most amazing aerobatics during their mating flights, rushing past each other with all the speed they can gather then turning at the very last moment and grasping each others talons to tumble-down towards the earth in a dizzying spiral, letting go just before they strike the earth to swoop away and climb to the very heights of their abilities, to repeat it again and again.

Or just the gentle flight from last nights perch to a new one, one better placed to catch the dawns early light. Watching the subtle shades of the morning light turn from the warm colors of the early sun towards the harsher colors of full day as they make the flight, exercising those wings stiff from last nights cold.  If we see this and experience that feeling of intense but quiet joy at their limitless freedom imagine what the bird feels.

When I was younger I read a book called “The Once And Future King” by T. H. White. You may have read it yourself, I know you’ve probably seen the Disney movie “The Sword In The Stone” which is the first part of The Once and Future King and it is where Wart, who is to become King Arthur in the not too distant future is changed into various animals and birds as lessons in life by Merlin, his wizard tutor.

The part where he is turned into several different hawks and other birds has always stuck in my mind. I want to do that. I mean it, change me into a Peregrine falcon right now. T.H. White’s descriptions of the various changes that Wart goes through are written in such a way that you almost feel you could understand how that would work. What it  would feel like. It is one of the reasons that I try and capture the feeling in my images in the hope that I can bring to life what I’m seeing and feeling when I get to see sights like the one above. This is a shot of a Bald Eagle heading for a sunnier perch than he spent the night on, at Bosque del Apache wildlife refuge. The colors are courtesy of the early morning sun.

Fast Food

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FastFood6825Osprey Yellowstone                       click to enlarge

For the Osprey in Yellowstone fast food doesn’t mean ordering the quarter trouter or the Flopper from one of the fast food joints along the river. It means once you have your meal you better eat it as fast as you can get your little beak moving because everybody and their uncle is off camera just waiting to take it a way from you. Possession is no guarantee of a finished lunch.

Osprey like this one are renowned fish catchers. It’s what they do. They invented the fish sandwich. But that doesn’t stop some of the bigger kids in the neighborhood from swooping in and taking it away from him. A bald eagle will charge an osprey causing it to abandon his meal to the feathered bully. When hungry, other raptors may take advantage and try for his fish, even other osprey will attempt to steal a meal when they get a chance. The only real defense is to get the meal that’s outside inside as quickly as possible. Hence Fast Food.

This fellow made quick work of this trout a la carte but had to keep a wary eye in the sky as there was another pair of osprey flying above, watching him watch them, just waiting for a chance to get a freebie. It helped that he was a pretty big fella for an osprey and his belligerent pose kept the other two at bay until he finished his meal. There aren’t many quiet, slow dining experiences in the park unless maybe you’re a grizzly who happens to be alone on an elk carcass. But then, even he has to watch out for another bigger grizzly, or a pack of wolves that will harass him until he leaves out of sheer frustration, kind of like when you get seated next to a family with nine children under the age of five at your favorite restaurant. No happy meals for anybody then.

Epic Fail

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EpicFail8736Bald Eagle  Yellowstone                      click to enlarge

At the beginning of the season, which starts in early spring, the songbird tryouts are held in Yellowstone National Park. Birds from all over the country fly in to audition and try to sell their stuff. It’s absolutely huge if you get picked to be one of the parks resident songbirds and the competition is incredibly tough.

This competition is a pass/fail selection process so each performer chooses their very best material to present to the judges. They only get one shot at this so the pressure is immense. The judges are unyielding in their quest for excellence and show the various tryouts little or no mercy in evaluating their performance. It can be brutal to hear their critiques.

The selection process is open to anyone who wants to try and the only requirement is that they be a bird. This young lady is back for her eighth straight year and although she is persistent that doesn’t increase her abilities. She has failed to be accepted each of the eight years despite several tearful attempts to sway the jury. The judges are looking for birds that sing melodious songs that are simple, easy to repeat, and identifiable. Ms. Maseve LaNez has never gotten past the first few stanzas of her perennial favorite “America the Beautiful” and she didn’t again this year. In fact one of the judges said she sounded like Tom Waits in a blender. Now I know that they have to be truthful, and well constructed criticism is helpful, but that is just plain mean.

The tryouts are over for the year and there were plenty of great selections to fill the resident songbird slots. As usual there is a fine representation of larks, warblers, trillers, pippins, syncopates, callers, rollers, and a new category this year, jazz scatters. There is however for the eight straight year, no large Bald Eagles singing “America the Beautiful” in our nation’s premier national park. At first you might think that just isn’t fair somehow, but then you haven’t heard Ms. LaNez sing it either. The Judges were right.

Snake River Cruiser

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SankeRiverEagle0168click to enlarge

Standing on the banks of the Snake river waiting for something to happen is a pleasant way to spend an afternoon. Its quiet here, the river here is flat, slow and lazy as it forms a big sweeping bend through the pines on its way downstream. The surface is a sheet of glass, mirroring everything above it without a ripple to mar it’s surface. Over near the bank a family of mergansers are squabbling, and soon one takes off in a running pattern across the rivers surface, head outstretched, each foot leaving a small splash as it tries to gain speed for its takeoff.

SnakeRiverEagle0199click to enlarge

Occasionally a trout will jump for a fly but its short lived time spent in another dimension is soon over and it returns to it’s element with nothing to show for its effort but a series of slowly spreading rings that ripple in the sunlight. The river murmurs as the rings reach the bank and send little waves against the moist earth while stems of grass leaning into the water bend slowly and rhythmically with each wave.

SnakeRiverEagle0169click to enlarge

Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere a Bald Eagle soars slowly around the bend nonchalantly cruising above the river. It slowly flaps it’s wings but mostly glides watching intently for that shadow moving just below the surface. Sometimes you can hear the wind moving through the feathers of it’s wings but not today. Today it is silent. The trout that so recently leapt into the air makes a fatal mistake and moves too close to the surface, it’s dorsal fin breaking through and giving itself away to the hunter above. One quick dive, talons open, the eagle makes contact with the surface, and the fish and it is all over. It leaps back into the air, it’s catch firmly grasped as the hunter wings it’s way to the big pine on the river’s bank.

SnakeRiverEagle0170click to enlarge

Many times these small acts of nature are the biggest part of your day and leave the longest lasting memories.This scene was not only captured by the camera it was indelibly etched into my memories and will surface during quiet times to be enjoyed over and over.