My 1st Bald Eagle sighting

[Bryan @ Woodstock]

A pair of eagles have been in the area of the Pittock Dam at Woodstock the last 2 years. A fellow I have coffee with took me to the nest location, not far from his residence. We walked along a tree lined fence row, when we got spotted by one of the adult eagles. The eagle was just over the tree tops circling us. Two chicks in the nest.
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[Ron F]

Great pics Bryan...there are some around here (Paris, Nith River Area) But I have not seen them
spectacular bird!
Ron

[stotto]

Nice photos. It is always awesome to see any of the large raptors.

The chicks are looking big already.
stan

[StephenL]

Here in London, there are some that fish in the Thames River. I assume they nest in the area as they stay until the water freezes over in winter. Nice pics.

[jaywood1207]

Great pictures but now I'm going to have to spend some more time out there to see them myself. I didn't realize we had some in town. Mind passing along an approximate location I could start looking?

[willr]

Great pictures but now I'm going to have to spend some more time out there to see them myself. I didn't realize we had some in town. Mind passing along an approximate location I could start looking?

Ummm Up????

We have lots of Golden Eagles -- mostly patrolling the farmers open fields. Look towards the open fields.

[red_langford]

Goldens in Sutton? Very cool. Are you sure they aren't Turkey Vultures in that part of the world? Golden's prefer mountainous terrain.

The juvenile Bald Eagle will not gain the white feathers until they are 2 years old so they too are sometimes mistaken for Golden's. We get lots of Bald Eagles in these parts. There is a community close to hear that claims to be the Bald Eagle Capital of the world. See them lots when we're out fishing, still waiting to see one pluck a fish from the water, plenty around here claim to have seen it. As a matter of fact check out this cool video shot up in this neck of the woods, there is a segment where they filmed one catching a fish.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVhhf...feature=g-hist

[Doug in Burlington]

Goldens in Sutton? Very cool. Are you sure they aren't Turkey Vultures in that part of the world? Golden's prefer mountainous terrain.

The juvenile Bald Eagle will not gain the white feathers until they are 2 years old so they too are sometimes mistaken for Golden's. We get lots of Bald Eagles in these parts. There is a community close to hear that claims to be the Bald Eagle Capital of the world. See them lots when we're out fishing, still waiting to see one pluck a fish from the water, plenty around here claim to have seen it. As a matter of fact check out this cool video shot up in this neck of the woods, there is a segment where they filmed one catching a fish.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVhhf...feature=g-hist

I think you will find that Golden eagles are in almost every province in Canada with the possible exception of some of the maritimes. I have seen them in Southern Ontario as well as in Quebec and I know that their range extends across all of the praries. They are in higher concentrations in the mountainous areas of BC. It would be pretty hard to confuse an eagle for a turkey vulture. Close up they are very different and while hunting their behaviour is also very different.

[jim in Halifax]

There are bald eagles in Cape Breton, N.S. See them all summer on the lake and have seen them dive for fish. In spring there is a special week in the annopolas Valley when the eagles are there in numbers. The chicken farmers feed them deceased chickens and on the weekends there are a number of breakfasts and bean/pancake/etc lunches and suppers in the local church halls etc.....

[hoss10]

I saw lots of Eagles while cycling around Cape Breton, one of the highlights of the tour.

Great pictures Bryan.

[Exploriment]

2 years ago I went for a hike down to one of my favourite spots here, a spit of land, maybe a half hour, quarter of an hours walk from my house.

Nice day, I was in a particularly groovy mood, sat on the beach for a few hours and enjoyed the sights and sounds. Lots of swans, geese, mergansers, ducks, gulls, hawks and vultures, and many more smaller species flying around.

I picked up my (not so great) camera to snap some photos of the cliff in front of me. I had already shot some earlier, but kind of half heartedly thought I’d take some now that the sun had gone behind the clouds. Kind of knew they wouldn’t be so great, but what the heck. As I snapped about the third picture, I saw a dark bird swooping down. I’d been seeing geese and mergansers (both dark birds) flying around for a few hours, and vultures had also been swirling around on the currents. But I quickly realized this was way better.

It was a bald eagle! It flew over the water, hovered there for a very brief moment, snatched a fish from the water and took off towards the trees on the cliff.

I was thrilled. I’ve never seen a bald eagle in the wild, and to see one grab a fish from the water close to major city, was doubly exciting. This will go a long way to showing what a dork I am, but I actually jumped up and shouted “WOW! That was amazing!” There wasn’t a human soul around to hear me, but I was that giddy with joy. These birds hadn’t been seen here in my life time, and for me to see one for the first time in action made me really happy.

And, the registering what I was actually seeing and the pressing of the clickety-click-photo-trick button on my camera, happened about a second after it grabbed the fish. Doubly cool. I saw it and captured it.

(Sorry, the picture is not so smoking hot, but hey.)

[Bob_Macgregor]

We have about 30 pairs of bald eagles in PEI and see them pretty often, though I haven't yet actually seen one catch fish (ask me about great blue herons, ospreys or petrels,though!). You guys get better pics of flying birds than I do; it seems like mine are always just a big black smear.
BOB