THE BALD EAGLE 



By T. GILBERT PEARSON 



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EDUCATIONAL LEAFLET No. 82 



It is a real event to see a Bald Eagle wild in its native haunts. It is so large, 



so majestic, and fiies with an evidence of such enormous strength, that one is 



impressed with the thought that here indeed is the King of 

 Eagle and _,. j ^ . ° ., . , , • , , , r 



Lamb -tsirds. Un one occasion, while eating my lunch in the shade of a 



little bush on a southern prairie, I saw one carry ofif a lamb. 

 The noise of some running sheep, not far away, caused me to look up just as 

 the Eagle rose from the ground with its prey. It did not once pause and flutter 

 its wings, as birds-of-prey sometimes do, in order to get a better hold of its 

 burden, for it seemed to have seized the lamb securely when it first made its 

 downward plunge. The bird flew with surprising swiftness and bore the 

 weight of its "kill" without apparent effort. I watched it for half a mile 

 or more until it disappeared in the forest, and not once did it show any indica- 

 tion of weariness. Years later I read an account, written by a bird-student, 

 who watched an Eagle alight on the beach after having carried a lamb weigh- 

 ing more than the bird itself for a distance of five miles across a body of water. 

 It is hard to believe that a bird can be so strong. 



Bald Eagles catch many of the larger water-birds, especially wounded 

 Ducks. On the lakes and sounds where much hunting is carr'ed on in winter, 

 many hundreds of crippled wildfowl are left behind when the flocks migrate 

 northward in spring. These fall an easy prey to the Eagles that usually fre- 

 quent such regions. Once I saw one capture a wing-broken Coot, in Currituck 

 Sound, North Carolina. At the approach of its big enemy the Coot dived, but 

 soon had to come up to breathe, at which the Eagle instantly swooped. Again 

 and again the helpless bird dived and swam under water, but the Eagle was 

 ever on the watch, and in the end they went away through the air together. 



That the most expert of diving birds cannot always escape was suggested by 

 my finding a Pied-billed Grebe in a Bald Eagle's nest upon one occasion; 

 but it is just possible that the Grebe had been picked up dead, for Eagles are 

 not averse to eating carrion. 



Thus I once found two of them feeding on the carcass of a dead horse in 

 company with a flock of Vultures, and on another occasion discovered four 

 Eagles eating some dead rays which fishermen had left on the 

 y . beach. The old story that they sometimes carry off children 



must be dismissed with the statement that it is highly improba- 

 ble — for one reason, because babies small enough to be carried by an Eagle 

 are not usually left unguarded in situations likely to be visited by these birds. 



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