[va-richmond-general] Fw: GOLDEN EAGLE!!!!!

["Robin Ruth" <robin.ruth@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

A report of a Golden Eagle in Chesterfield.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Rob Haener 
To: audubon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2005 4:53 PM
Subject: GOLDEN EAGLE!!!!!


Holy Cats!  A golden eagle the size of an aircraft carrier just flew 10 or 12 
feet above my head while I was mowing just ahead of the rain.  The wingspan, as 
judged conveniently by the six foot wide wagon he flew very low over, nearly 
brushing the edges of it on both sides with his wingtips, was well over six 
feet.  His beak was mostly yellowish, but had darker coloring at the edges, and 
the head was magnificently large, with a golden huge eye looking directly 
through me.  What a monster!  

I just thought that the local birders might want to keep a weather eye out for 
this guy, if he's lost.  I am between Newby's Bridge Rd and Couthouse Rd on 
Burnett Dr, and my land is 1000 feet long, so I got a long look at him in 
flight.  The direction of his travel seemed to be consistently east by 
southeast, and he never came back to feed on the disturbed rodents and insects 
where I mowed a large field.  He had been perched in an apple tree, and when he 
took off, the whole tree violently flopped side to side.  I wonder why he was 
in a tree so low, when there are hundreds of taller perches all around.  

We have seen the occasional lost osprey here, and many falcons, hawks and 
turkey buzzards, and there is a great horned owl as well as a smaller, more 
obnoxious owl in our woods, but this is the first eagle I have ever seen, and 
he was close enough for me to see the interlocking ridges of his feathers, the 
flakes of beak material on the side of his beak, and his empty talons trailing 
behind him.  HUGE!!!!  What a bird!

I just had to tell you folks about it.

Rob Haener in Chesterfield.

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