birding-aus

Swimming Eagles

To: birding-aus <>
Subject: Swimming Eagles
From: Gary Davidson <>
Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2008 09:24:36 -0700 (PDT)
Hi Tom and all,
I was quite interested to read your account of eagles swimming.  I recall 
watching a Bald Eagle near my home one day.  It was utilizing its common 
technique of catching diving ducks.  It would repeatedly dive at the duck 
causing it to dive.  As soon as the duck resurfaced the eagle dove again.  
There is no intent to catch the duck on the first few dives, merely to tire it 
out.  On this particular occasion the eagle seemed to tire first!  It was out 
in the middle of the lake at least 400m from land.  It settled down on the lake 
just as a gull or duck would, except that it kept its wings spread and draped 
across the surface of the water.  It remained there for perhaps a minute.  Then 
it raised its wings and lifted directly off the water!  Perhaps not actually 
swimming, but apparently quite comfortable on the water.
Gary Davidson
Nakusp, BC
Canada

--- On Fri, 8/8/08, Tom Tarrant <> wrote:

From: Tom Tarrant <>
Subject: Swimming Eagles
To: "BA Mailing List" <>
Received: Friday, August 8, 2008, 10:42 PM

Today whilst trying to film White-eared Monarchs on a gorgeous Queensland
winters-day near Dayboro I noticed a couple of large birds passing overhead,
to my astonishment a pair of Wedge-tailed Eagles fell out of the sky and
landed in the middle of a pond, they were talon-grappling and must have been
unaware of the water beneath them, a third bird then arrived and joined
them, two flying-off and the younger bird flew to a tree to dry-off.

Until today didn't realise that raptors (...apart from Ospreys) could swim
so well.

I've posted video-footage
here<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5277788128967782249>(apologies
for the quality) and updated our blog at
http://www.aviceda.org/wp

Tom
--
********************************
Tom & Marie Tarrant
Kobble Creek, Qld

http://www.aviceda.org

http://wildlife.vodpod.com/
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