Teen eagle learns a hard lesson

Brain experts report that the human brain does not mature until age 26, and I don’t know of any bird experts that know anything about the maturity of bird brains. Wednesday, I saw a teenage bird brain in action – almost resulting in a death of an immature Bald eagle.

I was driving along the Warm River east of Ashton when I saw a teenage Bald eagle dive bomb a mature male Mallard on the water. Its belly flop sent water exploding high into the air as the two birds became entangled in an unintended web of misfortune. By the time I got my rig stopped and turned around, the eagle’s belly pains had turned into survival desires.

The duck flew off, uninjured, while the eagle was using its wings as oars and made it to a small island in the middle of the river. Climbing out of the water was a chore, but it finally made it, spread out its wings in the unseasonable warm 44 degrees to dry-off.

After resting, it attempted to fly, but fell back into the water. After it got on the snow again, it used its wings as snow paddles to cross the island to get to some bare ground where it panted like an old steam engine.

After resting and attempting to dry out its soaked feathers for about 20 minutes, it flew about 15 feet to a beaver’s feed station. It was finally close enough for me to observe how soaked it was from head to talon. I could tell it was very young, as its black bill still had the yellow edging of a young nestling.

It was not in a hurry to try to fly again, but it worked its way to a beaver-peeled log about a foot off the water where it could spread out its wings and attempted to fluff up its water-soaked breast feathers. While watching it for half an hour, I heard the call of a mature Bald eagle that landed in a nearby tree.

The adult made several calls with the young eagle calling back and I assumed that the adult was probably one of its parents that came to check why the kid was late for lunch. The adult flew up and down Warm River several times while the youngster continued to dry out its feathers. I decided to leave and look for other things to photograph, and when I returned about an hour later both birds were gone.

I can only imagine the conversation between the two eagles as they discussed what had happened. I am sure there was a lecture about picking on dead ducks instead of attacking a live one that was almost as large as itself. The experience probably created a large learning curve about not getting your feathers wet and how long it takes to dry them out on a mostly-cloudy day.

It brought back memories of when I did SDT (stupid, dumb things) when I was a kid. I hope it had learned a few things better than I did.

With the unseasonably warm weather we are having birds and animals can still find food anywhere they go and I am not finding them where we usually see them. But predictions from the weatherpersons tell us that after Christmas we will have some bad weather to contend with.

I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and you get to where you are going, safely and have fun with family and friends. Be kind and considerate to all you meet.