FEEDING THE EAGLES

The eagles in town have had two extreme winters in a row and they have really
suffered trying to find enough food to make it spring. You can read about how
people have helped them in this post. Our family has been thawing extra salmon
and halibut we had and taking it down to the beach across the road.

It is amazing how you can walk down there minding your own business and
you don't even realize how many sets of eyeballs are watching what you are
doing. They don't call them eagle eyes for nothing! All it takes is for one bird
to see you and the call goes out to the entire population. They come from miles
around, no exaggeration. You can literally see eagles that look like tiny black
specks coming from the surrounding islands that have heard the call.

What's funny to me is that since they are all starving you would think they would
see the meat and just hoard it for themselves, right? First some, first served is
what you would think. Nope, not these wonderful birds. The first eagle to see the
meat starts calling for the others and pretty soon the sky and trees are black with
all of them.

A few Sundays ago my older brother (much, much older--like older than dirt)
called and asked if I wanted to help him feed the eagles. He had taken a big
box of moose meat out from the bottom of his freezer to thaw and was going 
down in front of his church on the rocks to feed them.

So my older sister (much, much older--ancient in fact) came with us and they
both brought their cameras and I threw the meat. Now we were expecting lots
of eagles to show up, but I think we lost count at 200+! That's not counting the
masses of seagulls that came, along with the ravens and crows. It was amazing!
It really reminded me of the movie The Birds and once they really started coming
in close I realized just how incredibly sharp those talons are on those predator,
meat eating birds. Plus their wings are so huge that they make amazing fwooop,
fwooop, fwoop noises and their beaks are like razors.

It was very rewarding to see so many hungry eagles eating and I'll never forget being
so close to them I could have touched them if I had the guts and I wasn't so attached
to my fingers.

Click on the pictures to make them larger. Since my brother is a professional photographer
I went ahead and watermarked the pictures in case he wants to sell them one day. Yes, I
realize the year is now 2008--thanks for noticing.

I was too lazy to go back and change them all once I saw that I put the wrong year. Now you
know why he's the pro and I'm the meat thrower.

This is how close were to the eagles--how awesome is that!!