[obol] Ankeny eagles

[Wayne Hoffman]

I stopped by Ankeny Refuge this afternoon (Dec 16), and at the boardwalk to the blind heard and saw some interesting eagle behavior.  I first heard loud eagle calls approaching from the south, then saw two eagles flying very close together about 200 feet up.  The came right over me, then the trailing one flipped over, under the lead one, and they locked talons.  They spun about 2-3 revolutions with feet grasped, losing altitude, then broke apart, and something compact ~3 inches across dropped from them, and fell to the ground, landing with a distinct thud.  they then circled repeatedly over the area it dropped.  Initially they were silouhetted against the very gray sky, and I was not able to be sure of age, but assumed this was courtship.  However, after the drop I was able to see that one was an adult and the other an older immature (some white on the head and in the tail), so I suspect it was attempted theft instead.  I left at that point in hopes that one or the other would be able to recover the prey, although hey seemed to be interfering with each others' attempts.

Wayne
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.oregonstate.edu/mailman/private/obol/attachments/20071216/df7440f9/attachment.htm