 Eagles Renovating On D_ _ _ & K_ _ _’s property (where I am currently looking after the house and critters) Bald Eagles are a staple, not because the place is an Eagle gathering spot but because a pair of Eagles nests here and hold the territory all year round. In the morning I sit in the east pasture, and when I’m early enough I watch a mature bird leaving the sheltering branches of a ragged old fir tree where it spends the night before flying toward one of two nest sites. Most times when the Eagle disappears from view, I assume it lands in the trees on the hillside. Four mornings ago the eagle reappeared after a customary cross-pasture sojourn and its antics were somewhat puzzling. I don’t know what made me turn around and face the eagle, but I did, and saw the eagle momentarily just above the top of a youngish fir tree. The eagle looked less than aerodynamic. It appeared to be making an umbrella-like closing and opening motion, then dropping ground ward followed by a swooping return to flight. As it did this for the first time, a small bird - perhaps a Gray Jay - vacated the fir tree top and took refuge in the lower limbs of the tree. I surmised that the Eagle saw the smaller bird and attempted to grab it. However, that theory quickly evaporated when the eagle continued on to another fir tree further along the ridge and did the same maneuver. It was unlikely that I was witnessing a hunting strategy. I thought this was the end of the mysterious event but shortly thereafter the eagle came back across the pasture. It was easy to follow the eagles’ progress because its white head and tail stood out against the dark evergreens, but the details of just what it was doing were impossible to make out. I watched it cruise over the mature forested area on the south side of the pasture and disappear to my right. It soon reemerged carrying a long tree limb dangled from its talons. The tree limb appeared to be at least as long as the length of the eagle. It made a beeline toward the nest site and though I couldn’t see what the eagle was up to I assumed that it took the stick to one of the nests. This most likely explained the weird treetop maneuvers. I believed that the eagle swooped towards likely looking treetops with the idea of reaching out and snapping off a dead limb. When I thought back I remembered during its first ‘attack’ on the fir tree the birds legs were extended as if grabbing at something. At the time I thought it was trying to catch the Jay which had quickly dropped from the treetop. This would also explain why the Eagle clutched the skinny end of the stick and allowed the bigger butt end to trail behind. Had it picked the branch from the ground it would probably carry the branch by the middle. This strategy for gathering nest material surprised me but at the same time I recalled reading somewhere about this stick gathering strategy before. It is still surprising however that Eagles would be doing nest renovations so far ahead of next year’s nesting season. Eagles Gardening In the vicinity of the two Eagle nests on the property are several tall fir trees which are the favoured perches of the Eagles. One particular giant they like is probably 300 years old. It is dead and stands about 80 feet from one of the nest trees. The adult Eagles spent a lot of time here and when the young can fly they too hunch high in the top of this noble snag. Even if one hadn’t witnessed Eagles perching there, a quick inspection of the ground below the snag where splattered droppings cover the ground, would tell the tale. But it’s not just the droppings that fall to the ground in the vicinity of the old tree; it is also bones, feathers and fur, remnants of birds, and fish and animals on which the Eagles have dined. Eagle feathers as big as flight feathers and as small as fluff are also found, the cast-offs of recent and past molts. The effect of all this material dropping to the forest floor beneath the giant fir tree has been quite dramatic. The first thing you notice when approaching this spot is that the forest floor is not like the surrounding ground where thick moss and the occasional plant rises up in the deep shadowy floor. Instead the base of the tree is surrounded by tall shrubs, grasses and plants. It is an Eagle-created arboretum. One shrub from this vegetation island which immediately stands out is a thriving elderberry. It is about 5 feet tall and this year it put forth fruit for the first time. This plant is an oddity because the closest place where elderberry shrubs normally grow is some miles to the north east on the slope in wetter territory above Eagle Creek. I surmise that the berry that grew this elderberry plant here in this unlikely spot was contained in a meal that one of the Eagle’s victims ate. The Eagle ate the berry eater, (one can only speculate what creature it might have been) and passed the seeds which fell into this well composted spot. Other plants that crowd this small area are raspberry and rose bushes, and a variety of grasses, all, I speculate either planted through Eagle droppings or thriving in an unnatural habitat due to the richness of the soil. Unwitting gardeners that they are, in a small way the Eagles do their part to change the landscape. Eagles Singing To those who are hearing it for the first time the voice of the Bald Eagle might be a bit disappointing. Seeing the giant bird one might expect it to make a sound at least as attention grabbing as the often-used-in-movies Red-tailed Hawk call. But such is not the case. I listened to the Eagles this morning calling down by the nest site and had time to make some observations. I have often thought there is something of a Herring Gull call in the Eagle’s songs and this morning had ample opportunity to listen. The particular song I overheard starts with a “week…a-week…a-week” sound. It is a loud strident call and when I’m in the company of Gulls, I hear the almost identical utterance. Perhaps the Bald Eagle, being a member of the Sea Eagle clan and spending some of its life around the seashore, has stolen or benefited from having this call in its repertoire. This is speculative on my part but this is the kind of speculation you can get away with if you’re not a scientist. The other most often heard call of the Bald Eagle sounds like a loud snicker quite similar to the snicker of a cartoon dog, the name of which I can’t remember. It’s difficult to describe this most-often heard sound in any other way; it’s not a scream or a yelp or a wail. It’s a snicker. How could anyone take a snickering predator seriously? Perhaps the scimitar talons and hatchet-faced head overcome the seeming vocal shortcomings because there is no doubt, the Bald Eagle is not short of fans. To e-mail Tom CLICK HERE To look at previous column CLICK HERE |
