There has been a Bald Eagle hanging out across the river for a couple years. He hangs out with the hawks in the Serengeti tree. A tall dead tree all by itself is what I call the Serengeti tree. He just flew within 30 feet in front of me at no higher than 30 feet. I got a nice viewing of him as I saw him coming my way since the river. He just buzzed the willows. I love the birds we get in our yard.
They’re always nice to see. I went tubing down a river a few years back. Saw two of them fighting over a bass. I have a Serengeti tree in my back yard. I saw an owl perched in it one night a month ago. Birds of prey are cool, its nice to see one thats rare.
I just saw my first bald eagle a couple of months ago. It flew over my car, maybe 30 feet away. I was in awe. What a majestic bird. And what a great symbol of the U.S. Beats the hell out of the beaver!
The bald eagles sure have been making their presence known in central WI. It’s about a 15-mile drive to our favorite cafe in Coloma, and there’s a group of three that inhabits a certain stretch along that route. Quite an impressive sight.
And the other day we passed one in a field about 2 miles from our house, maybe 75 feet from the road, snacking on some yummy dead thing. It just looked up and watched us as we drove by. Awesome.
I love living in the sticks.
I work from home, so every Friday afternoon I go for a long drive to get out of the house and celebrate the end of the week. I follow Boulder creek to the northwest of Boulder, CO and there is a community of bald eagles that inhabit the area. Last week one of the full grown ones followed me for about two miles just cruising next to my car.
I tried to take pictures with my Iphone but they all turned out as crap.
http://www.hancockwildlifechannel.org/index.php?topic=cam-sites
Here is a link to some eagle nest cams.
A couple of years ago I was flying into the small airport in Morris, Illinois, when the guy riding shotgun pointed out the window. Just a little to our right was a bald eagle circling over a farm field. The line of airplanes going into the airport were all making a slight detour for a look, and the eagle was most certainly looking back at the airplanes, probably wondering why we were making all that godawful noise when there were so many nice thermals for soaring on. Pretty cool.
Where do you live?
Bald eagles are so common in and around Boulder that when I lived out there I pretty much lost all the excitement at seeing them. In the winter especially, when there’s no leaves on the trees, if you look, you see 'em everywhere.
I saw one a couple days ago circling over my house. A small pack of crows were hassling it. Very fun to watch.
I work in downtown LaCrosse and my building is right on the Mississippi. Eagles are a common sight at least in the winter - still cool too see. Herons and pellicans are cool to see also (the former being quite common)
Brian
It happened to us too! First time ever I saw an eagle up close it was up in our white pine. Freaked us out when it swooped down low over the lake and glided across to another big pine tree.
Two eagles, and they created quite the buzz. Pictures up on our township website.
Even better was the when an Osprey showed up too, now they don’t hang around all year, migrate to S america!
Now if only they would nest in my yard! maybe not, i have a cat…
The redtail hawk that lives in our ‘backyard’ is back for the summer. I heard it yesterday evening before I saw it soaring overhead. Sometimes it buzzes the house. These is a noisy osprey that sometimes nests on our side of the lake, too.
I forget that my location doesn’t display anymore. Portage Wisconsin.
Flying my glider, I’ve thermaled with eagles perhaps a dozen times. They mostly seem happy to share the air with much larger birds, though they usually want to be above you (and, being much better at “reading” the thermal, usually have little trouble staying there). When at the same level, they seem to like to keep at least 50’ of separation. The will occasionally give you a look that seems to say “Where did you learn to fly?”.
I was once chased out of a thermal by a Golden Eagle (probably one of a pair nesting in the area, and thus territorial) - he/she flew toward me with talons outstretched and a general demeanor that said “One of us is the boss of this sky, and I don’t think it’s you.” I thought it best not to dispute the issue.
I managed to climb above a Golden Eagle at about 16,000’ in Utah, at which point he folded his wings and departed in a screaming high-speed dive - I lost sight when he was a good 5000’ below me.
A soaring friend has told me that he’s several times seen eagles thermal up into a cumulus cloud, later emerging from its side - so they are apparently comfortable “on instruments”.
Xema, most of us mere mortals only know of the bird behavior we witness from the ground and perhaps mistakenly assume there’s little else to be observed. Your post indicates that assumption would be wrong… very, very wrong. What a fantastic opportunity and observation.
Timed out… meant to add that we had an eagle lift from its nest and fly down to investigate us as we canoed down an Alaskan river years back. It was moving so quickly that in photographing it, all I ended up with was a blurred background and an eagle beak. That was it, on the side of the photo just a clear, distinct beak.