I have just yesterday been treated to the thrill of witnessing a female
little eagle stoop on a grazing wood duck, just 20 metres from my lounge
window. The impact shocked the life out of the duck, and came so suddenly
that the victim had barely begun to open its wings. The eagle had flown
over half an hour earlier - I was alerted to it by the head-cocking of the
wood duck and her fellows. Having made its kill, the eagle laboured the
carcase four metres to the cover of some young blackwoods. Just one hour
later, it flew off, with the limp remains. I sauntered to the scene,
expecting to see quite a pile of dead duck, but only a pile of feathers and
the picked-clean head and beak were there.
Greg Pyers
Daylesford
By the way, last summer I saw a kookaburra dive into a dam, in the manner
in which it would pounce on prey on land. Is this often seen?
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