Eagles enjoy the sunset, too!

What could be more special than watching the sunset with an eagle?

Eagle on ice!

Best time to see eagles is when the Potomac River is frozen. I think this one is a 4-year-old. Head and tail not totally white yet. We counted 12 on the ice 1/2/18, 8 adults and 4 juveniles/immature. They gather to fish where there is a break in the ice.

Have you been to the dentist recently?

Look closely and you’ll find a dentist ant working on this accidental catfish jaw. Eagles are so good at discarding the parts they don’t want to eat, like this jaw full of teeth. It’s interesting to see how many fish parts they discard in the road.

Remains in the Romaine!

Our local male osprey, Diver, brought a lovely herring to Robyn’s garden and dropped it perfectly in line with her newly planted row of romaine lettuce! The traditional native American fertilizer!  We’re pretty sure it was Diver because garden is near his new nest and he has been busy catching herring for days. It was such a lovely fish it must have attracted the attention of a local eagle. There was undoubtedly a dramatic war between the osprey and the eagle in the air over Robyn’s garden. Wish we had seen it happen. If the fish had dropped into the Potomac River, the eagle would have swooped down and stolen it before it slipped below the waves.  But neither bird wanted to attempt to retrieve the fish from inside Robyn’s  fabulous plastic net fencing designed to deter deer, groundhugs, rabbits and turtles.  We have added osprey and eagles to that list. Please use sketch for another CrayolaMoment!

Robyn just sent me an actual photo of the herring nuzzled up against a romaine seedling, precisely in line with the just-planted row.  My drawing was from memory.  The fish was the most important part of my drawing so it did (unintentionally) become bigger than life… A drawing allows you to show a whole lot more than a photograph!

That couldn’t possibly be an eagle!

Who ever heard of a bald eagle with a brown head and a white belly? Eagles have white heads and dark brown bellies, don’t they? Adult eagles do. But eagles don’t reach adulthood until they are about 5 years old. Baby eagles and juvenile eagles go through many stages of color combinations as they molt their way to maturity. Those two birds above are not ospreys or peculiar vultures. They are juvenile eagles. Check the pair out as they enjoy the view from a sycamore tree!

 

Looks like an eagle in reverse…

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Check out the bent-over neck and head of this one. The first eagle has a brown head but this eagle’s feathers are mixed brown and white. Remind yourself when bird-watching, if the body is as big as an eagle’s, it probably is an eagle! Then try to figure out whether it is one, two, three or four years old or if it is a mature adult.

If wishes were fishes…

If my wishes were fishes these two scraggly juvenile bald eagles would have full bellies! They were both sitting on same branch of a southern red oak yesterday afternoon in the cold rain, wishing for better fishing in the river below them. The eagle on the left is probably older than the eagle on the right. Young juvenile eagles don’t have white heads and tails like adult eagles. A bald eagle is full grown when it is 5 years old. It won’t have a completely white head and tail until then. If you see a large, dark brown bird in a tree, look closely. You may have found a young bald eagle rather than a black or turkey vulture.