Saturday, March 20, 2010

Bald eagle sighting.

Just a few minutes ago, I was out in my back yard with Cojack enjoying the nice weather. I happened to glance up and catch sight of a mature bald eagle making lazy circles over the apartments behind me at an estimated altitude of no more than 150 feet. That's the first one I've seen since I moved here in 1993.

I've got a 6 foot fence that will protect Cojack from coyote attack. I'm hoping that 30 lb dogs are not on the bald eagle menu.

There was a tall column of circling buzzards a little to the east of me. The eagle flew over and mingled with the buzzards for a few minutes. They seemed to ignore him. I'm guessing buzzards are not on the menu.

The last I saw of him, he was heading south towards the St. Marys River.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have seen a bald eagle perched on a utility pole on the Pt. Peter causeway twice this year. They are a beautiful bird but I am always surprised that they are not as large as I expected. We have a pair of Ospreys that include our yard in their hunting territory. We hear or see them daily during the nesting season. Those birds are big. My dog weighs less than 5 pounds and, like you, I wonder if little dog is listed on the Osprey menu.

Jay Moreno said...

Relax. Ospreys are strictly fish eaters.

However, with a five pound dog, I would be concerned not only with bald eagles, but large red-tailed hawks. I've personally seen a red tailed hawk swoop down and make off with a kitten.

Anonymous said...

I keep the dog on a short leash. If a hawk thinks he's going to get my dog, I'm going to have me a hawk.

The again. I said that about a gray squirrel when I was about 12 years old. I managed to grab the squirrel--then the squirrel grabbed me. He did a lot more damage to me than I did to him. I'm not sure what I'd do with a handful of pissed off hawk.

Anonymous said...

Eagles feed on carrion right along with the buzzards, so keep moving1

Jay Moreno said...

That's true of bald eagles, but not golden eagles. Fortunately, (in terms of pet safety) we don't have any wild populations of golden eagles east of the Mississippi that I know of.

Back in the 80's, when I was a Chief Hopsital Corpsman, I went to Fort Carson, Colorado for two weeks with a USMC-R live foire artillery exercise. Acting as the poreventive medicine officer for the exercise, I had my own Jeep. One day I was riding atop a high plateau. As I approched the edge of it to take the road back down to the base camp, a golden eagle suddenly popped up about 20 feet in front of me, riding the updraft along the cliff face. Man, that thing was big. The wing span looked to be between 5 and 6 feet.

Anonymous said...

I had a very sad experience with a bald eagle last year. My niece and I were going to Brunswick(I live in the north end of the county) when we saw a large bird just swoop down in front of the semi ahead of us. The truck hit the bird and Judy and I were like..Oh no....The truck didn't even slow down. We stopped and were very upset to find a bald eagle in the middle of the road. Judy jumped out of the car..stopped traffic and picked the bird up..sobbing all the time. We were standing on the side of the road wondering what to do with him when a couple stopped and asked us what happened. We explained but Judy was very adamant that she wasn't going to leave the bird there to be eaten as carrion, so the man told his wife to go back down to their house and bring a shovel. When she got back, he took the eagle out in the woods and buried it. I thought that was very nice of him. Don't know who he was but..Thank you..

Jay Moreno said...

Sorry to hear that.

Did you happen to see what he was swooping down on or at?

Anonymous said...

No, I didn't,Jay. Everything just happened so fast.