Favoritos de inkasaur

These magnificent images were captured by the camera on a radio-controlled glider being flow by Allen Moore.
The eagle was clearly not happy with intrusion into its air-space but fortunately only inflicted a small tear in the wing fabric of the aircraft.
(With permission).

1-24-20 Bald Eagle eating a duck or a raven.

This adult had stolen the meal from a small group of juvenile eagles which were squabbling over it. When I walked over to see what it was eating it skreeled & hissed at me to stay back and resumed its repast.

Then, it gave me "The Glare" - the one that drives nightmares so I backed out of its territory - about a foot, and it went back to ripping it's meal apart and gulping down large chunks of meat, bones, feathers.

We have over 500 Bald Eagles here and while both life forms have learned to have respect for each other it is well understood by us lesser creatures that at certain times of year (nesting season) - Eagles Rule. They've been practicing Dino's for a long time, apparently lack any sense of humor and have no compunctions about attacking intruders about the head and shoulders. A bird with a 6 foot wing span and 3+ inch really dirty talons can do a lot of damage.

Some nesting eagle pairs are known to be very territorial and more aggressive so... most folks here - when near those nest sites avoid wearing certain kinds of hats (no one knows for sure which kind since hats and eagle strikes vary from year to year), shiny reflective things or pushing rattling carts out of the Post Office between May and September.

The last two fotos show how the bird will anchor its beak and then extract its talons before moving its foot to a new spot while eating. This helps hold down the prey and prevent it from being stolen by other eagles. If you toggle the images back and forth you can see the action.

@gcwarbler and I along with our spouses were standing on the deck of a friend's house in Hays Co., Texas, when we saw a Red-shouldered Hawk come up off the ground carrying a snake. As the Red-shouldered made its way toward a distant woodland, an adult Red-tailed Hawk came toward the Red-shouldered, probably wanting the snake. There were a few close passes in the air as the Red-tailed harassed the Red-shouldered, but the Red-shouldered was eventually able to get away to enjoy its meal. It was fun to watch the interaction!

This observation for the Red-shouldered Hawk; the Red-tailed Hawk posted separately.

Spotted Sandpiper
Actitis macularia
basic (winter) plumage - walking across pond slider
Hornsby Bend,
Austin,
Travis Co., Texas
21 January 2010

I've always thought a good caption for this image might be "pardon me, have you any Grey Poupon?"

not exact location. This bird is well known by the park rangers. Amazing sighting of the bird fighting with a branch it eventually broke off and flew out of sight, presumably to a nest it may be building/maintaining?

Beautiful leucistic Cal King found while road cruising in the Mojave! This lavender morph is common in the pet trade but rare to find out in the wild. It was very far from human habitation so it is definitely not an escaped captive bred snake.

Baby orca breach! These are the baby orca photos from yesterday, taken during a predation event (multiple sea lions). Update: Josh McInnes tells me the orca pod is the OCT044As (including these two calves) and the adult male in some of these photos is OCT016B.

The first time I had ever seen this, i videoed the entire event as well from entry to exit. It was as if this species swims all the time. I sent it to a frogmouth expert and she had never seen that before. The bird chose to swim and flew away very easily after its swim. There appeared to be no explanation for the bird swimming as it was not particularly hot or anything unusual.

I did five expeditions to The Pyramid Tarakoikoia from 2007-2010 doing Chatham Albatross research. This photo taken during the 2009 trip. Photo taken in 'the cave' overhang where the weather doesn't wear down the albatross nests. Chatham Fulmar Prions burrow under and around these tall nests.