Plus alternate crops of two of them to show what else is (and isn’t) going on.
Regular readers have probably guessed that my favorite photo series of all time is one I took of an adult Bald Eagle eating a carp “on the fly” at Farmington some years ago. In the past I’ve divided those photos up into three different blog posts but I’ve never shown all of them or even most of them in sequence on the same post. Last night I was reviewing one of those older posts when I came across this request in a comment from Marty K.
“I’d be interested in seeing the entire series of this eagle/fish “pas de dinner” sometime.”
I responded by telling her she could see many of the other images in an older post and I pointed out the link to her. But she answered with another comment that I didn’t see until last night:
“I was thinking of the possibility of combining that post and this one to see the whole series in one place (she says, timidly 😉 ).”
The more I thought about it the more I thought it would be a good idea. Seeing them out-of-order and disjointed in different posts certainly didn’t tell the story very well. So here they are, all twelve of them, in the order they were taken. One of them is an image I’ve never posted before and I’ve provided alternate crops of two others. As per usual in a series some are better than others and there are some skipped images that I didn’t include because I cut off body parts of the eagle.
With this many photos I don’t have time to provide image techs for them individually but most are in the range of 1/1250, f/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4 tc.
On this frigid winter day at Farmington eagles were feeding on carp on the ice but thieving and ravenous gulls were constantly challenging them for their meals so this eagle took off with its fish and began to eat it in flight and hopefully in peace. I believe this was the first and only time I’ve seen an eagle of either species actually eating in flight.
This bird was a highly skilled multitasker.
This just might be my favorite photo in the series. Here we see a scale falling away from the carp as the eagle buries its beak in its head.
There’s a lot of bone in the head and the eagle seemed to have a tough time getting through it so for better leverage it…
tried to reposition its right foot higher on the fish…
without much success at first. Now the scales are really flying off of the carp.
The eagle seemed to struggle a little with…
where on the fish to place its right foot.
But finally with that problem solved it could begin to enjoy its meal.
But an alternative crop of the previous photo shows us that one of the pesky gulls had other ideas and came in close with the obvious intent of making the eagle drop the fish back onto the ice.
We can’t see the eagle’s eye through its flight feathers so part of its bill will have to do.
Those gulls were very aggressive. Once on that morning I watched as a gull bit the tail feathers of an eagle carrying a fish in flight and it looks like this one had the same intention but if it happened I didn’t see it.
Here the eagle has a chunk of head in its bill and there’s another piece or two falling away.
At this point the gull is about to give up and leave but…
it gave the eagle a piece of its mind as it did so.
When I took these images and posted a few of the photos to my blog I said that the eagle had been attempting to dig out and eat the eye of the fish. I’d read that some birds do that and I made the assumption it was happening here too because that’s what it looked like.
Like many assumptions it’s one I shouldn’t have made.
A huge crop of the previous image reveals that the eye was still undamaged but much of the rest of the head is gone.
Very soon after this shot was taken the eagle veered away from me, probably to escape the following gulls. Besides, the buffer on my old Canon 7D had filled up so I was only shooting blanks anyway.
Ok, credit where credit’s due. I owe this entire series to Mia. I had my lens on another eagle when Mia called my attention to this one coming our way. If she hadn’t called out “bird, bird” there’s not a chance I’d have seen it coming in. So I got the shots but she didn’t because she’d filled her buffer on yet another eagle.
We’re both good about pointing out photo ops to each other but I get the best of the deal because she has better eyesight. So she tends to spot them more often and more quickly than I do.
Thanks, Mia.
Ron
Note: The background for these photos is the Wasatch Mountains in shade.
Absolutely stunning series.
LOVE Eagles and love these pictures!! Awesome, thank you for sharing!
Late to the party again! 😉 Ron, this series was even better than I could’ve possibly imagined!!! Wowzers! There’s something that really appeals to me regarding the shot with the splayed right talons. I’ve been playing with my laptop’s scroll capacities — both ways — so fun! Thankyouthankyouthankyou! Yay for your skills and yay for “Eagle-eye” (in more ways than one!)McPherson. 🙂
I certainly hope that the framed shot made the transfer from old trailer to new one! I can think of a few more to add as well. 🙂
Ask and ye shall receive, Marty (up to a point…).
It was a little tricky getting that framed photo (#2 in this series) off the wall of the old trailer without damaging it or the wall but it’s done. Still have to hang it in the new trailer.
Awesome series Ron!
Charlotte
Thanks, Charlotte.
Awesome, awesome, awesome! I love these photos. This looks like a male. The males front feathers look like they are slicked back where as the female looks like she ran her talons through her feathers to fluff it up. Also the female usually has some brown feathers in the back of the head. The female nares are larger, you can almost see inside them. It does seem to me that Eagles go for the eyes first. Also when Eagles bring a fish to the nest with babies, they usually eat the head. Sometimes the fish is still flapping and they do this so it can’t hurt them. I also read that eating the head gives them nutrition and energy to keep flying back and forth to bring in food..
Thank you, Debbie.
Ron, I feel privileged to have seen and read your series today. What a bird of grandeur. I am shocked that the eagle did not drop the carp while it was trying to figure out where to position its right foot.
Thank you for the great photos and narrative, Mr. Teacher.
Considering how slippery fish are it was quite the accomplishment. Thanks, Alice.
Astounding.
Thanks, Martha.
Ron: Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! Drop-dead beautiful photos. Beautiful background. So sharp. So, interesting.
You’re very welcome, Richard.
Very fun to see and read this all in one piece. 😀
Thanks, Arwen.
Nice to have a natural light-box woking for for you! Added dramatically to the quality of the image. Have a great day Ron!
“Nice to have a natural light-box working for you”
Great way to put it, Frank. Thanks.
Who would have thought that an account of eating on the fly could be so exciting? Photo journalism at its best.
I’m glad you like it, Lyle. I think the interaction with the gull helped in that regard. Thanks.
Excellent series. The carp has that “Oh, crap” look in its eye.
The gull best resembles a third-year Glaucous-Winged Gull, but those are coastal, so I have to back away and say, I have no idea. The species in your area should show blackish wingtips with the combination of grayish wings and dark near the end of the bill.
There’s a photographer in Iowa, Ty Smedes, who did a lot of camera work from a blind, including a series of one bird coming in, snagging a gizzard shad, and eating it in one gulp on the wing. I’m impressed that the bird you show has a much larger fish than a shad, and is attempting to eat it in pieces while flying.
I have yet to master this skill.
Leland, I’m worse at gull ID than I am with sparrows, thus my generic “gull” moniker. Thank you.
Good to see the series of shots and thanks to you and Mia. Watching eagle and osprey cams the behavior is natural most of the time. Those beautiful birds go for the heads first. Most do eat the eyes first when bringing in the fish to the nests for its mate or chicks. The eagle was doing a good job of covering its catch by mantling its wings in the one picture. Mantling is learned very earlier in the nests to keep the siblings from getting the food brought in. They learn to do this for survival. Sometimes those talons lock down on the prey and hard to release the grip. I learn from the chats on these web cams. 🙂 Have a good day.
Thanks, Trudy. I’m hesitant to say it was mantling – very difficult if not impossible to do in flight. I think the wings were just in that position when the shutter fired as a natural consequence of flight. But I agree, the flight pose does look like mantling.
You had me had Bald eagle, my very favorite. The build up of your story and then your gorgeous series of pictures ‼️ THANK YOU 😁
Good day Ron
I’m glad the “buildup” worked for you, Diana. Sometimes I think I talk too much…
Wow! Thanks for posting.
Thanks, Larry.
THANK YOU for sharing this incredible series…and thanks to Marty for any role played in making this happen…it has been a rough morning here and this series really lifted my badly sagging spirits…I well remember the original postings and loved them(if I remember right there were two…one with the gull and one without), but this series is 1000 times better…each frame is a gem. Thanks, again…
I agree, seeing the entire series in order makes quite a difference. Hang in there, Patty!
Wow! Wonderful stuff and thanks for posting the entire series. Like you, I like the second image the most, but the interaction of the eagle and gull is really fun to see. You have so much going for you in these images. I love the light angle. Looks like the sun is behind you and a little over your right shoulder (maybe a bit more and low on the horizon, great early morning color). I love the gradation of light on the eagles head, with the brightest light on top and the very gradual gradation across his (her) face. I’m somewhat surprised that 1/1250 was sufficiently fast to freeze the feather tips, but obviously it was and I think that sharpness adds to the image. I am also surprised that f/7.1 provided sufficient DOF to have the entire bird in focus from wingtip to wingtip, but it does and again all that sharpness adds to the image as well. And the background. At first I thought it was cloudy sky, but whether its clouds or distant mountains, its great. The other thing going for you is the ISO. At this relatively low ISO for bird photography, the image quality is superb (I assume, because you really can’t tell on the web). But I bet in person this image holds up really well in larger prints (even with a crop sensor). But most importantly, with all the technical BS put aside, the position of the bird with meal is wonderful. One potential criticism, and again I may be full of crapola (as my wife tells me), how are those whites like on the top of the head? Are there some details in there. Its hard to tell on the web. You are lucky to have another pair of eyes with your. Laurie, my wife, has much better eyes that me and frequently points out stuff to me that I would never see (I am referring to birds).
Sorry for all the jibberish, but great images deserve to get their due.
PS, I am going to Homer Alaska in March to get my fill of bald eagles.
Frank, the whites aren’t blown so there’s still some detail but they’re fairly bright. I don’t think what you said was jibberish at all. Us photographers have to pay attention to stuff like that. The photos were taken at 2pm and I was shooting almost straight to the east so at this time of year the sun would have been to my right and probably at about a 45 degree angle. The light was filtered by high clouds.
On the subject of birds eating the head first, earlier this year I observed 4 of 5 different Ospreys coming to the nest with a headless fish that they’d stopped and snacked on. I read somewhere that fish’s brains have a lot of nutrition in them. Could it be that this Eagle was after the brain? Very cool series, by the way!
I wondered about that too, Dave. But in that last photo the tiny brain appears to still be intact.
A Remarkable series of images. Easily the best I’ve seen of an eagle eating mid air. So cool!!!!
Thanks very much, Keith. Sounds like you may have seen this behavior before but it was new to me.
Wonderful series, Ron! Should win the Oscar for best short documentary!
Diane, I’ve often wondered what the series would look like in a flip book. Might have to try that. Thank you.
Pulling the series together REALLY tells the tale……. 🙂 I’d have thought the eye was what it was after, BUT! I don’t get why it would spend on that time on the head of the carp but then I don’t understand raptors working on the neck of a chicken before anything else either! 😉 Magpies are the main harasser of anything with grub here…… 40 this morning and wind to match…….
“Pulling the series together REALLY tells the tale”
I thinks so too, Judy. We can thank Marty for that.
Yes, bird behaviors can be hard to figure out…
Very nice, beautiful shots, excellent post along with kudos to ‘hawk-eye’ Mia! I have never seen this type of behavior before. Many thanks.
I’ve seen a few eagles, but only once have I observed behavior that I’ve read about, eagle bullying an Osprey for its catch. That was something I’ll never forget.
I hadn’t seen this behavior before either, Dick. Or since. Both eagles and gulls were very hungry so that contributed to the behavior. Thanks.
Spectacular !!!!! If I had the option here I would enlarge that and make it bold and probably bright red. Most spectacular shots since I have become a follower Ron. I have been taking photos of our one eagle pair for ten years or more and have yet to see one actually in the process of catching a fish. Beautiful photos. Yes, gulls are aggressive and this guy or gal looks like a veteran who is not chasing a feeding eagle for the first time. Thanks for sharing these and of course a big thank you to Mia for alerting you.
Everett Sanborn, Prescott AZ
Thanks, Everett. A lot of luck went into this series including the fact that the eagle was flying low enough that I was able to get mountains in the background. Without those mountains back there in this relatively poor light the photos wouldn’t have turned out well at all.
Wonderful set! One could only hope to ever have a photo op like such! This is probably the ultimate in ‘multi-tasking’! ((Tongue in cheek now😉..I wonder if this is a female since they are so good at multi-tasking?)) Thanks for sharing this whole set…it makes my day. I’m glad I took the time to check your post before I head back to Milwaukee! Something to ponder! 😊
I hope your weather is as good for this trip as it was for yesterday’s, Kathy. I have no idea of the sex of this eagle but you may be right. Thank you and safe travels. I hope your mother is recovering well.