Posted on 05/11/2013 7:38:32 PM PDT by Jet Jaguar
You've probably never seen so many bald eagles in one place. Bald eagles might be scarce in the lower 48 of the United States, but the noble national bird is in abundance in the unusually named and lovely town of Unalaska, Alaska.
Typically depicted as noble lone hunters, bald eagles will be happy to accept a free lunch just like the rest of us would. This flash mob of angry birds apparently couldn't pass up their favorite food.
The group of about 40 bald eagles is seen at leisure, casually lunching on a giant load of fish fillets carelessly left in the back of a pickup truck in a Safeway parking lot.
Apparently, word got out among the eagles that it was lunchtime. Can you blame them? Free food!
There were so many of the of the giant, serious-looking birds flocking around the pickup truck and vehicles next to it, shoppers were afraid to go to their cars. Many called the police for help.
According to Unalaska TV and radio station KUCB, local police officer Bill Simms put on his siren in hopes of chasing away the birds. That was successful for some of them, but not the bravest of the bunch. Simms had to chase the rest of them away himself, urging fearful shoppers whose cars were nearby to "just get your keys ready and when I shoo them away, run into your cars."
It worked. No one was hurt, the pickup truck owner hightailed it out of there with the remainder of his fish fillets, probably hoping the eagles wouldn't be following him all the way home.
“A few months ago I saw a group of 40 or 50 of them here in SE Nebraska.”
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Lucky you. I have been monitoring several web-cams for the last 3 years,but have never actually seen one.
Monitoring them can be heartbreaking though. It can be very tough out there.
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That's why it is our national symbol, they are everywhere!
$25,000 fine for having bald eagle feathers.
There was a family who had a family hierloom antique head dress made of b.e. feathers — it was valued in the many tens of thousands for an auction, and then was confiscated by the fed storm troopers, and I think fines were handed out as well.
http://www.travelok.com/article_page/top-10-places-for-eagle-watching-in-oklahoma
Our lakes don’t generally freeze over here, we can get up to 2000 of them in winter.
I’ve seen mobs (?) of bald eagles many times in the past twenty years close to my home near the Mississippi. They gather on the ice near open water looking for fish.
I always get my annual “dose” of bald eagles when I go on the Connecticut Audubon’s “Eagle Boat” during our February break. They have a big heated houseboat-type boat with free coffee and tea, loaner binoculars (I bring my own), literature on how to recognize the age of the eagles years 1-4, and a naturalist with a portable PA system pointing out eagles and interesting/historical structures on shore as the boat goes up and down the Connecticut River. This year, unfortunately, I could not see my eagles because the weather was too bad for the boat to go out on the day I had to spend there :(
Being an even *more amateur* photographer, I was so *pleased* with my little myself. Well, the sky opened up and it started to pour rain....my travel companions started to call me back into the car...I just didn't want to leave I was so excited.
As we got back on the road, we came around a bend in the road....and Voila! Eagles galore! You stand under them b/c they were interested in feeding off some dead fish and it was truly amazing. Good stuff.
If I broke any laws, I'm sorry.
Wonderful pictures.
My travel companions still tease me about that day in the poring rain. But it was quite remarkable....and as you can tell, I remember it like it was yesterday. LOL
Now I live on a lake in northern Idaho and I have a family of them in a tree...hmm...very close by. They're amazing creatures. Fishing birds, mostly, although there was an ad in the local post office recently for a missing Teacup Pomeranian who had gotten loose. Um...nom nom nom...
Eagles are lazy bastards (I photograph for a science research group).
They are a step up from vultures and buzzards in my book (the step being they do also hunt in addition to scrounging).
Just give ma a falcon any day !
Wow. Looks like that might have taken out an eye
For years we now have many eagles who spend the winters foraging on the lower areas of the Connecticut River.
There are eagle watch boats that go up and down my River with tourists. In a small way, they are good for the economy here....and majestic to watch.
A few have stayed and are nesting. Very few. Which is wonderful.
My daughter took a picture of one in a tree at the end of her road...we are about 50 miles north of Detroit...
My favorite bald eagle event occurred on the Homer Spit in February in the late 1990’s.
The wife and our two kids and I were getting pretty shack happy from the long winter so we decided to take a Sunday drive from our home in Sterling to watch the daily gathering of eagles around Jean “the Eagle Lady’s” spot at the end of the Spit.
It is illegal to feed eagles but the authorities looked the other way when she did it. She has passed on now. When she was alive she would collect fish waste from the processing plants on the Spit and spread it on the beach during the winter months.
We arrived and shut the truck off as we watched eagles, ravens, and seagulls jockeying for fish scraps. The nearest eagle was an immature one with a brown head sitting on a log. There were two ravens in front of him squawking and generally making a nusiance of themselves. Then I noticed a third raven hopping around behind the eagle while his buddies kept his attention to the front. The raven hopped up to the eagle and bit him right in the arse. All three ravens immediately took off and the eagle was looking around like “What the hell?”
That was when I realized that ravens are pretty special birds! Heck, I know a lot of humans who aren’t THAT smart.
“Eagles are lazy bastards”
One of my favorite movies is “The Wind and the Lion”. Brian Keith portrays Theodore Roosevelt. During a scene at a Yellowstone hunting camp he is musing about why the grizzly bear is not America’s mascot.
“The bald eagle is nothing more than a dandified vulture.”
Having watched them scavenge when I lived in Alaska I agree.
When much younger, a friend of mine and I went down to Florida in search of bald eagles. My friend was a wildlife photographer and worked in conjunction with the Field Museum in Chicago, and took pics for articles in magazines such as National Geographic and others. He was an excellent photographer and took beautiful pictures as well as wrote various articles himself.
We zoned in on one particular Eagle’s nest where Ma and Pa were constantly ferrying back and forth with food for their young. It was a continuous procession to and fro from the nest; no rest for the weary. Another time we went up to Horicon Marsh in Wisconsin (we both lived in nearby IL) so my friend could photograph Sandhill Cranes, another magnificent bird species. I just love these little dinosaurs.
Ben Franklin in a letter to his daughter, commenting on the poorly done eagle on the new National Seal that looked somewhat more like a wild turkey:
“For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.
“With all this Injustice, he is never in good Case but like those among Men who live by Sharping & Robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank Coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the District. He is therefore by no means a proper Emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America who have driven all the King birds from our Country...
“I am on this account not displeased that the Figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America... He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on.”
I borrowed one of these pics for my desktop background.
You see a lot of bald eagles at Baden Lake in NC. Great place to sail and then balk eagles too.
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