Eagle Collision
Bald Eagle’s hair raising experience
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“I was walking along the shore of Lake Tapps (Seattle, Washington) on Monday, and noticed a big commotion a little more than 1/4-mile away. I saw a Bald Eagle circling and repeatedly diving on what I thought must be a school of fish. Soon he was joined by another eagle and they began to fight each other for the prey. Territorial eagle fights do happen, but I’ve never seen one, nor have I seen any good photos. Naturally, I grabbed my camera. The action was so furious and far away that it was hard to see if I was getting any good photos. So I just snapped lots pics and hoped for the best. I didn’t quite realize what I was watching, until I got home and looked at the pics on my computer. It turned out I had photographed a three-way life & death struggle between two mature Bald Eagles fighting over one very frightened duck! The eagles fought each other for several minutes while trying to get that duck - it was like WW II in the air! The fellow sitting on the tailgate of his pickup truck never realized the show he was missing...  The duck watches as the eagle speeds straight at him at 40 mph...  With perfect timing, the duck dove and escaped with a mighty splash - then he’d pop to the surface as soon as the eagle flew past. This was repeated over and over for several minutes. Would the poor duck tire and that would be the end of him?  A second eagle joins the attack! The duck kept diving “just in time”, so the eagles began to dive into the water after him...  After several minutes the eagles got frustrated and began to attack each other. They soon began to dive vertically, level out, and attack head-on in a good old- fashioned game of high-speed “Chicken”. Sometimes they banked away from each other at the last possible second; other times they’d climb vertically and tear into each other while falling back toward the water. (The duck catches his breath at the right side of this picture)...  Terrible miscalculation - a head-on collision between two Bald Eagles...  One eagle stayed aloft and flew away, but the other lies motionless in a crumpled heap. The lucky duck survived to live another day...  The eagle wiggled, flapped and struggled - mostly underwater. He finally got his head above water and with great difficulty managed to get airborne. To my astonishment, he flew straight toward me, and it was the most wretched and unstable bird flight I’ve ever seen!  The bedraggled eagle circled me once - then lit atop a nearby fir tree. He had a six-foot wingspread and looked mighty angry. I was concerned that I might be his next target, but he was so exhausted he just stared at me. Then I wondered if he would topple to the ground...   My half-hour wait was rewarded with this marvelous sight. He flew away, almost good as new. All these pics were taken over 1/4-mile away, with a hand-held Panasonic FZ-28 at 18X zoom (486mm), on Intelligent Automatic (point-and-shoot). Photographer Unknown Fowl: A four-letter bird. - Daffynitions joe-ks.com A married man is a caged bird. - Spanish Proverb Birds of a feather flock together. - English Proverb Crowbar: Where birds can get a drink. - Daffynitions joe-ks.com Wishing to be a bird so you can Fly Away. - Unknown A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. - English Proverb Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness. - Alejandro Jodorowsky Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings. - Salvador Dali The bird is powered by its own life and by its motivation. - Abdul Kalam The early bird catches the worm, eats more, and dies sooner. - Czech Proverb The Bird of Hermes is my name, eating my wings to make me tame. - Kohta Hirano Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines. - Steven Wright Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark. - Rabindranath Tagore In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm. - Alan Perlis Woodpecker: 1. A knocking bird; 2. A 17th Century prosthetic device. - Daffynitions joe-ks.com The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. - Steven Wright The early bird would never catch the worm if the dumb worm slept late. - Milton Berle In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence. - Robert Lynd may my heart always be open to little birds who are the secrets of living - e e cummings Though what bird in the best of circumstances does not look a little stricken? - Lorrie Moore With birds flying around, man's desire for having wings rises to infinite. - Mehmet M Ildan I know of only one bird (the parrot) that talks; and it can't fly very high. - Wilbur Wright A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer; it sings because it has a song. - Lou Holtz Birds with broken wings walking on the ground were once flying high up in the sky. - Mehmet M Ildan Be grateful for luck. Pay the thunder no mind. Listen to the birds. And don't hate nobody. - Eubie Blake A bird that you set free may be caught again, but a word that escapes your lips will not return. - Jewish Proverb I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than to teach ten thousand stars how not to dance. - e e cummings My worlds collide. When one things happens, it just starts a domino effect - everything else goes on. - Wanda Sykes If you turn the imagination loose like a hunting dog, it will often return with the bird in its mouth. - William Maxwell Just as the bird sings or the butterfly soars, because it is his natural characteristic, so the artist works. - Alma Gluck I keep looking for one more teacher, only to find that fish learn from the water and birds learn from the sky. - Mark Nepo Mosquito: 1. A small insect designed by God to make us think better of flies; 2. The state bird of New Jersey. - Daffynitions joe-ks.com Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best. - Henry Van Dyke Success is full of promise till a man gets it; and then it is a last year's nest from which the birds have flown. - Henry Ward Beecher As the eagle was killed by the arrow winged with his own feather, so the hand of the world is wounded by its own skill. - Helen Keller You can not prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building a nest in your hair. - Chinese Proverb If I were a flower, humming bird would be my favourite bee And If I were blind, the light of darkness I'd love to see - Munia Khan Join voices, all ye living souls: ye birds, That singing up to heaven-gate ascend, Bear on your wings and in your notes his praise. - John Milton Like a prisoner awaiting his release, like a schoolboy when the end of term is near, like a migrant bird ready to fly south... I long to be gone. - Malcolm Muggeridge Be like the bird that, passing on her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings. - Victor Hugo see also Eagle, Fishing & Scenery Sections B.C. Christmas Tree Eagle Catch (@ t-1)
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