A Bald Eagle Hunts Coots on Topaz Lake

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• I saw the same scenario in a small pond, played out with a bald eagle and a single mallard. The mallard female knew what was up and was diving and swimming and did a great job surviving a dive and the eagle hovering overhead waiting. Eventually the eagle got tired of trying to hover and flew off. The duck survived.

• The eagles have much more success on these days with strong winds +John Delaney, when they can hover and the wind helps keep them aloft.

• The crows will put an end to that.  Sometimes the Eagle will fly upside down to get them while being attacked.  Eagle flips just long enough to teach them a lesson.

• interesting.

• +Hal Cooper  We saw ravens harassing a golden eagle in the Alabama Hills near Lone Pine, California on Sunday, on our way back from Death Valley.  The eagle was standing on a rock and the ravens, about 2 dozen of them, were making a lot of noise, but were being very careful not to get too close.

  The corvids (crows and ravens) keep the hawks away from the lake, which give us a high population of quail and cottontail rabbits, which rewards the coyotes and bobcats who come by form time to time.  No one seems to mess with the eagles, but they are very shy of humans, (I assume from being shot at, in some part of their range).

• +Jeff Sullivan I learnt that bald eagles are the only birds to do something awesome: it's called a free-fall dance or something when they court. I saw it on a documentary and it was the most amazing thing and probably the closest thing akin to what humans feel in the first throes of courtship.

• Nice shot.

• nice!

• it's beautiful.

• nice shot!