Since Fiona hit last September we have seen a large influx of Bald Eagles at the river behind our house. It seems most of them hang around just before sunset and I've stumbled upon quite a few of them when I take my daily walk to the river. Today was incredible as I counted at least a dozen of them hanging around, many of which were on the ground. There are several younger eagles (smaller and mostly black) and a few males (again all black) however I saw about 6 females (they have the white heads).
A few of them were close to the river's edge eating what looked like a duck. The females are incredibly large! We have to be careful with our dog even though she's likely too heavy for an eagle to lift (she's 20lbs and apparently a Bald eagle can only lift 4lbs) a young one who doesn't have much hunting experience may still try to pick her up. In fact we've had to start waving our arms at some of the young ones when they fly too close for comfort! Here's some photos from today:
A female watching me watch her:
A male watching me watch him:
Young eagle:
Fresh duck anyone?
They leave some interesting imprints in the snow. I took this photo yesterday:
Young bald eagles all have dark plumage and gradually change colour to have the white head and tail, both sexes.
A neighbour used to feed bald eagles every Thursday at 11AM, the eagles would show up at about 10:50 every Thursday only. He collected meat scraps from a grocery store in Mahone Bay.
A fisherman here rescued a young eagle that got its talons locked on a too large fish in the Bay. It was drowning and couldnt take off.
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63 Parisienne sport coupe (The Big GTO), black, maroon interior, 409 4 speed; former owner of a 59 El Camino, 63 Corvette SWC, 62 Chev Bel Air SC. 1963- Pontiac top selling car in Canada
Mahone Bay, NS Still not old enough to need an automatic
They are getting less and less shy. One just landed in a tree next to our house with some entrails in it's talons. My phone camera is junk but I took a photo anyway.
63 Parisienne sport coupe (The Big GTO), black, maroon interior, 409 4 speed; former owner of a 59 El Camino, 63 Corvette SWC, 62 Chev Bel Air SC. 1963- Pontiac top selling car in Canada
Mahone Bay, NS Still not old enough to need an automatic
AMC Eagles would have put Carl over the edge! I do like them though!
MC wrote:
I imagine I was the only one who clicked on the thread thinking it was about AMC Eagles...
Great shots, Todd!
LOL... that would be a great side effect! Oops, sorry Carl!
I always thought the Eagle 2 door was kind of cool, but I think they were quite rare.
Back on topic... you will want to keep your pets inside. I recall several years ago in Cape Breton, seeing and eagle flying away with a large crow in its talons...
A few years ago a friend of mine was working at a construction site beside a landfill. He said every morning he'd watch the bald eagle swoop down and kill a seagull for breakfast!
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1966 Strato Chief 2 door, 427 4 speed, 45,000 original miles
1966 Grande Parisienne, 396 1 of 23 factory air cars
Apparently according to a friend, who talked to a friend, who bumped into a willdlife officer at the local grocery store (hey, it's PEI) , what we are seeing may not be a good thing. Apparently when we had that nasty cold snap three weeks ago (-26 with a -40 wind chill) the rivers started freezing up. A large portion of the geese population stays on the Island all winter. The geese started to huddle together in what small portions of open water that remained. They then started spreading avian flu to each other and apparently now quite a few of them are dying. The eagles are opportunists and have been eating these dead geese. This means there's a good chance the eagles will start to get sick. Now we've had hundreds of geese at the river behind our property and I've yet to find large numbers of dead ones. I've only seen one dead carcass in the woods that looked to be a coyote victim. Hopefully this report of avian flu isn't true.
