So I’m driving to work. First day back after two weeks in The Big Easy. Of course I picked up a cold on the plane back. Never fails. So I’m a bit groggy.
I see a raptor circling low, and assume in my half-awake state it’s some sort of hawk. Then I noticed its white tail, and its white head and its beak. Definitely a bald eagle.
It swooped down toward a red spot on the freeway – just as I was closing in on the same spot in the car. It swooped up quickly and went overhead, but it was pretty close.
Those birds are rather large up-close. Hadn’t thought of it before.
The proud, majestic symbol of our nation is a carrion eater. Oh sure they will kill fresh prey, too, but they have no qualms about snacking on roadkill.
I posted a thread a few years ago about a near-miss hawk/car incident.
We were following a convertible on a country road, and a hawk launched itself up from the grass by the side of the road, a fat ground squirrel dangling from its claws. It had to veer suddenly upward to avoid the convertible, and it lost its grip on the squirrel - which landed neatly in the open car! The woman driving pulled aside, and we followed her. The gruesome squirrel carcass was right on the console between the two seats, and my husband plucked it out and threw it away for her. She was very agitated and grossed out.
I encountered a wedge-tailed eagle while driving in Western Australia. It rose up off the road shoulder and cleared my windshield by a very narrow margin. Those things are huge!
On the 5, northbound in the Chuckanuts. Another raptor ‘near miss’. This time the raptor was some sort of hawk. It took off from the median carrying something black. Looked like a small bird. The hawk swooped low across the freeway, nearly being hit by cars. It was safe on the right shoulder. But then it took off and flew across the freeway again! Missed it by about a foot, and it dropped its meal.
My dad nearly hit something- three somethings- last time he gave me a ride to the airport. Our best theory is that a great-horned owl was violating the resident red-tail’s territory*, so the red-tailed hawk was chasing him out, with a crow from the neighborhood following behind either pretending to be helpful or just chasing the birds because that’s what they like to do. All I know is three birds flew within six feet of our windshield, at eye level, on I-5 where it’s 4 lanes wide in both directions.
Not everyone is lucky enough to miss: A guy in Yakima actually hit an osprey with his car. He carefully picked it up with overalls he had in his trunk, took it away from the road, and waited. The osprey wriggled out and flew off, looking angry but okay. There’s an article about it here.
*My mom knows where all the resident red-tails perch on the I-5 corridor between Portland and Seattle, so it makes the most sense.
