Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Christmas morning visitor...pretty cool.

A bald eagle!

Went out on the back deck for a smoke (don't you start with me too) and the crows were having conniptions and making a helluva racket. There's usually a raptor in the neighborhood when they get that stressed out so I expected to see one of the regulars--Sharp-Shinned, Rough-Legged, Cooper's, etc.. Instead there was a Bald Eagle wheeling around over the marsh.

Not the first Baldy I've ever seen, but the first I've seen on Long Island...and right out my back door. The fishing on the marsh is good enough to keep a few pairs of Ospreys coming back every year to raise pups, so I expect (s)he will stick around awhile.

Cool!

Right before this snow storm started...we had a baldy hanging out in a tree a hundred yards from the back porch. I figured he was waiting for something to die<grin>!

Beautiful bird, that said.

Beautiful birds but they sit on fence posts along the highway here waiting for someone to run something over! A rancher friend of mine waged war on the jackrabbits on his place a few years ago. Looked like he was growing bald eagles out there the next few days until they cleaned up the rabbit carcasses. No shortage of them or golden eagles around here!

Very cool.

Sometimes I take for granted that I one or two almost every week around here. Then I talk to people that have only seen one or two EVER.

They truly are a beautiful bird.

I live within a mile of the WI River, and they are constantly flying up and down the river fishing. We also see quite a few in the ditches feasting on the dead deer.

Tom

never saw one on l.i. closest was about 3 hrs from the city while hunting. whereabouts on the island was the bird?

-ken

Neat birds, all of the raptors. When one has the rare opportunity of getting really close, I have the feeling they can look straight through ones eyes and out the back of your head.

We once ran down an injured eagle, and as we closed in, he clamped his talons around a sagebrush trunk. Try as we could, 4 grown adults could not pry him loose. We broke the trunk on both sides and put the whole package in a burlap bag for the ride to the vets.

From that experience, a word of advice. Don't ever let one of those boys grab on with their talons. One will not be able to free himself until the bird decides to let go. 1Minute

Edited:

Here's one from up in Steelhead's piece of the world. Looks like a bad hair day.

On Christmas Eve early afternoon, I was out in the back yard reloading the bird feeders when a bald eagle came gliding over in its circular search pattern. Another reason I love it here. One of our Thanksgiving traditions is driving out to our property along the Chariton River and looking for bald eagles.

Last week, we were over on the Mississippi River, in the Keokuk, Iowa area, and saw a couple hundred of them. Last year, on the MLK holiday (second or third Monday of January), we were over there and counted 4,000+ (yes that's right: over four thousand!!!) bald eagles along the river within the first mile or so below the dam at Keokuk.

The upcoming Eagle Days celebration is the 17th & 18th of January, 2009, in Keokuk. We're going over on the 19th, to avoid the crowds and hoopla, and be able to see the eagles in a much less disturbed environment.

There's just something about seeing them, even just one, that makes you feel more alive.

I'm across the road from the Crab Meadow preserve. It's really a whole different experience when you see a bird like that on this kind of scale. The marsh is only a mile square, and (as salt marshes always are) is completely flat. When you see a Golden or Bald Eagle out west, even up close, they seem smaller because the country they live in is so big. The bird with the biggest wingspan commonly seen around here is the Great Blue Heron.

They are quite a bird but when they are as thick as robins they don't grap you quite as much. Dang near had one knock me on my butt a while back he flew so close. Eye level and his wing tip almost hit me on the nose.

An old Neighbor lady was givin' me all sortsa' grief this morning
...." a big Golden Eagle's killin' my layin' hens, can you shoot him ?"

.....ain't happening ( I never told her this ) .....WAY too cool watching the efficient, and ( for the Hen) terminal swoop.

she never gave me any eggs, anyhoo.

GTC

I get that. Ospreys are pretty damned common in these parts, but I never get tired of watching them. My brother, on the other hand, owns a sailboat and is about as big an Osprey hater as you'll ever meet. They sit in the rigging of his boat and leave fish parts and giant, fishy bird poops on his teak decking.

I've never seen as many in one tree as they have along the rivers in Alaska. They get down here around November and stay until late spring, sometimes June if it's still snowing.

The most I've seen at once was twelve of them in a little patch of cedar and cottonwood. Pretty neat.

This time of year they feed a lot on road kill. Often wonder what I'm gonna' do if I hit one with a vehicle.

Got plenty of Osprey too. In fact, our FWP has to put up telephone poles with flat boards on time so the Osprey could build nests and leave the dang poles with wires on them alone. Strange as it may seem the Osprey actually use the nest poles and leave the other poles alone.

Now how many of you guys have a zillion pelicans? In the summer we have them and boy are they fun to watch fish. Dang things are so tame they'll walk right up to you if they think you have food or fish guts.