Notes To My Mother

At the Hood Canal in the state of Washington, the Bald Eagles come to feed and joust about with one another.  The food they are after are a fish called the Midshipmen.  The Midshipmen lay eggs in the oyster beds and when the tide recedes they are available food for a variety of birds.  For the eagles it seems there are two sources of this food, one is the Hood Canal itself, and the other is the Great Blue Herons.  Wherever you see herons standing in the shallow water, you will likely see an eagle come swooping in either right at them or just next to them.  But the eagles are always on the watch and when the see a heron flying with a fish in its claws they are off to the chase.  In the image above you can see the eagle closing in on the heron who has just release the fish which you can see just below its wing. The herons know the eagles are not after them but the fish, so letting go of the prize is a smart thing for them to do.  Here you see the eagle s...

In spring eagles gather at the Hood Canal in Washington.  What brings them there is a little fished called the Midshipman.  The female Midshipmen lay their eggs in the oyster beds and then leave for the male fish to tend to the eggs.  The problem for the fish is the oyster beds are in shallow water so that when the tide goes out the fish are exposed.  All sorts of birds come to feast on the fish, and among them are lots and lots of eagles. The behavior shown in the two images above is called grappling.  It is a cartwheeling spinning display with talons locked.  I had heard that this was courting behavior, however, according to the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Wildlife Institute, this is aggressive territorial behavior.  In every grappling image I have the eagle on the bottom looks distressed, while the one on top appears very much in control. Here is an image of an eagle with a freshly caught Midshipmen, being tailed by one of the ever p...