Eagles risk their lives for territory, courtship

SHARON WOOTTON

Originally published June 12, 2001

The phrase "The Eagle has landed" has taken on a whole new meaning.

In small clearing in the woods, not 25 feet away from the lane, two mature bald eagles were grounded, wings overlapped, talons tightly intertwined, neither willing to be the first to let go.

I was looking at the photograph of a lifetime while my camera was a half-mile away at home.

It was apparent why an eagle has been called the king of birds and the bird of kings. But these kings were exhausted, perhaps stunned, because they had fallen from the sky.

Stunned, but not taking their intense eyes off of us for a second.

Fight for territory

Although an adult male shows a certain tolerance for immature bald eagles in his territory, he will run an adult interloper off by attacking with talons extended, hitting the unwanted one on the wing or back if warnings fail.

Occasionally an attack will lead to twirling, one of the most spectacular avian displays.

As the attacking bird swoops down to strike, the intruder rolls over with its talons up. They grasp each other's talons and cartwheel downward, gravity winning because the wings are useless.

Generally, they release as they near the surface. Sometimes stubbornness (or inability to release those heavily curved talons) wins and they crash to the ground.

Even as they were exhausted and motionless, I was not about to attempt to untangle them. If I slowly approached, they might relax the grips and seek escape from a mutually perceived threat -- me.

I hadn't taken but a couple of steps when they did just that. But one just hopped up on a nearby stump and the other could go only about 10 feet into the woods and stand on the ground.

I got back in the car and waited. About two minutes later, they flew off in different directions.

Deadly preoccupation

"Plenty of cases have been reported in the literature of birds fighting to the death or having accidents when they were preoccupied with fighting," said Dennis Paulson, author of bird books and director of the Slater Museum of Natural History at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma.

"Some years ago two bald eagles were added to the collection here. They were found dead with their talons locked. They were both males and they had crashed to the ground and died," Paulson said.

"There are stories of eagles and ospreys drowning when the fish was too big and dragged them under. You'd think it would be the easiest thing in the world to let go but it wasn't, or maybe the claws locked into place and it was difficult to release them."

If the grounded pair had been a male and larger female, twirling would have been a part of the courtship ritual and their falling from the sky most likely caused by an inability to unlock.

Walt Whitman wrote about that display in "The Dalliance of Eagles."

Just as a side note, it has always amused me to hear people turn up their collective noses at the eagles' (and other birds) carrion-eating habits. Eagles have to expend little energy eating dead salmon on Skagit River gravel bars, for instance, so it's a smart way to dine. Carrion, after all, is decaying flesh of a dead animal.

Not to make too fine a point about it, but when we cruise the meat counter at the grocery store, the basic difference between our carrion and the eagles' carrion is that ours is better packaged.

Sharon Wootton is a free-lance writer from the San Juan Islands. She can be reached at songandword@rockisland.com.

The Olympian Copyright 2001

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