Well, although I dipped twice on the red-necked grebe at Burke Lake, I
decided that maybe I could catch the afore-reported bald eagle on his
nest in the "Bayou" just south of Dyke Marsh off of the George Washington
Parkway/Bike Trail; so, taking advantage of the short window of balmy
weather at mid-day today I set out for the spot.
There on the tree at the southern end of the island was a large
nest, although not very large as far as eagles' nests go, but I figured
it was worth hanging out a bit on one of the conveniently- placed benches
there and so soaked up some sun while watching a raft of about 100 coots
nearby in the water doing their hygiene/social thing while emitting their
little croaking sounds. It was all really very soothing.
As I sat there, I noticed a large bird with strong wingbeats
flying low over the water toward me and just seconds later, the whole
coot raft suddenly scuttled across the bayou to the farther shore. Then
I saw that it was a gorgeous adult eagle who flew right up and landed on
the nest and began poking around in it. Shortly thereafter, he began
tearing off strips of red meat and swallowing them, which kind of
surprised me as that had to mean that he had stored something in the nest
before and was just now dining on it. -- He definitely didn't have
anything in his beak or talons as he flew in. I didn't realize that
eagles used their nests for food storage, but guess it would make
perfect sense that they would.
So, now the next question: Will there be eaglets soon? If so,
it couldn't be a better place to observe them -- so close to the shore
that you don't even need a scope.
Edna
Aaron
Alexandria
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