Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Eagle On A Pole



Walked along the river for several miles and saw nothing special other than a few common mergansers bobbing in a stretch of fast water. Being mergansers, they would occasionally duck their heads beneath the surface or dive as they searched for fish.

On the way back to my parked car I saw an adult bald eagle landing on a nearby utility pole. The eagle was carrying prey, which at first I assumed was a fish plucked from the nearby river.


Looking through the telephoto lens as the eagle fed, it became obvious that the prey wasn’t a fish; the prey had a furry tail because it was a gray squirrel:


After a few minutes the eagle moved to another pole –


Did the eagle kill the squirrel, was it a roadkill, might it have been electrocuted, did the eagle take the squirrel from another predator? As so often happens in the natural world, there are more questions than the information at hand can answer.

6 comments:

Camera Trap Codger said...

Very nice shots -- always fun to see a raptor with prey, and then try to figure out what it is. No question about this victim, though.

The Furry Gnome said...

Great sighting and beautiful pix!

Essen Girl said...

PLEASE submit the 2nd photo to Audubon!!!

Indrani said...

Difficult pics but well captured.

Anonymous said...

Wow - amazing shots.

Out And About Global said...

Fantastic capture of a beautiful bird doing what we do 3 times a day--only it seems more cool when he does it.