![\"bald](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/bald-eagle-1030-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n1\/1250 f\/8. ISO 500, Canon 40D, 500 f\/4, not baited, set up or called in (though it was likely attracted by\u00a0carp killed by refuge personnel)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n This is an older image of an adult\u00a0as it came in for a landing\u00a0at a small Farmington pond.\u00a0 The pond is just below the bird and in front of the lightly\u00a0frosted\u00a0phragmites.\u00a0 The eagle had to drop very quickly after passing over the 7′ tall phrags in order to land at the water’s edge so it flared dramatically in the early morning sun.\u00a0 I do wish I’d had my\u00a0teleconverter (tc)\u00a0attached for a little better detail but I still liked the flight posture in this light.<\/p>\n Recently I promised my readers an update on the alarming Bald Eagle deaths that have been occurring in northern Utah.\u00a0 So far at least 20 eagles have died after suffering from\u00a0head tremors, seizures and paralysis.\u00a0 Several possible causes have been considered and investigated including poisoning of various types (lead was suspected for a while), encephalitis (caused by West Nile virus) and even\u00a0radiation from\u00a0Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant meltdown.\u00a0 Some officials now suggest that the die-off may be related to the\u00a0many thousands of Eared Grebes that have died from avian cholera\u00a0near the\u00a0Great Salt Lake, the eagles becoming sick from feeding on the grebes.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0So far officials are\u00a0stymied as to a precise and verified\u00a0cause.\u00a0 Dead birds have been sent\u00a0to the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis. for necropsies and there’s hope that results will be available this week.<\/p>\n In the meantime, Idaho wildlife officials have now reported their own sick Bald Eagles.\u00a0\u00a0This of course suggests that some of our birds were already in deteriorating health when they arrived from the north.<\/p>\n