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11/28/07
The Eagle Has Landed
Filed under: General, Birding & Outdoors, Florida & SE US
Posted by: Ken @ 12:38 pm

After a month of traveling in Illinois and the Texas Panhandle, it was nice to return to our Florida home. During the week or so before we returned home, there was a fish kill. Most seemed to be Largemouth Bass, all about 12 to 16 inches in length. Their skeletons were scattered about on our back lawn at the lake’s edge. Many Black and Turkey Vultures were picking scraps of meat or just loafing about on neighbors’ rooftops.

We walked to the supermarket this morning, and on the way back we saw an adult Bald Eagle sitting on a roof, about a quarter of a mile east of our home. We hurried home and I immediately ran to get my camera and drove to the location where the eagle was perched. During the winter it is not unusual for us to see Bald Eagles flying over our lake. Once I saw one attack an Osprey, in an attempt to rob it of a large fish it had just caught. However, they never landed, at least within view, so this promised to be a photo opportunity.

I drove to the spot where we had seen the bird, but it was gone. Disappointed. I returned home, with the camera still around my neck. Thinking that it might have moved to another rooftop, I opened the back patio door to look around. To my astonishment, there was a loud flap of wings and the eagle launched out from our own roof, only about 10 feet directly over my head! For a moment I forgot I had my camera. I turned it on, but it did not operate immediately. Luckily, the eagle landed on the roof of a house directly across the lake from us, perhaps 200 yards away. I took the above photo with my 300 mm lens.

I waited patiently and after about 15 minutes the eagle took flight and passed by about 100 yards to the north of our home. Neither picture is very good, but it was a thrill just to document one of our “yard birds.”


One Response to “The Eagle Has Landed”

  1. Janine Says:
    Thats a cool yard bird!

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