Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2000 15:33:42 -0500 Reply-To: les_eastman@netfox.net Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Les Eastman Organization: Harford Bird Club Subject: Interesting Observation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit While doing my part for the Harford Mid-winter Count in Havre de Grace on Saturday, Jan 29, I saw an interesting interaction between a duck and several Bald Eagles on the Susquehanna Flats. Due to the distance, lighting and heat waves, I did not make a definite identification of the duck but it was a puddle duck, probably a Mallard. Most of the flats was frozen with only the main channel and various leads open. The duck was sitting in the water and one of the eagles would make a pass at it as if it were trying to procure a meal. The duck would dive under the water and come up almost immediately and flap its wings to shake the water off and then just sit there. The eagle would make another pass or land on the ice as another eagle made a pass. Often the eagle would extend its legs down into the water as if trying to catch the duck under the water. When I first started observing, there were 4 immature eagles either standing on the ice or making a pass at the duck. Other eagles arrived to take their turn or just to stand on the ice and watch until there were 10 eagles around the duck, 4 adult and 6 immature. The interesting thing is that at no time did the duck try to escape from the area and the eagles never ganged up on the duck. It's as though it was a game. After about 15 minutes, the eagles seemed to lose interest and stopped harassing the duck. When I left, the duck was still sitting there, as well as most of the eagles, just ignoring each other. I have heard of eagles attacking waterfowl repeatedly to exhaust them until they are an easy catch but this didn't seem to be the case. The passes by the eagles were far enough apart for the duck to easily catch its breath and the duck seemed basically unconcerned until an eagle swooped low enough and then it would dive under. As I said, the duck did not try to leave. I am not sure what it was doing in that area. It was alone while most of the other Mallards were in flocks. I am sure the water was too deep for feeding and the duck did not appear to be trying to feed. It did not appear to be injured since it could easily dive under the water and could vigorously flap its wings when it surfaced. Other birds seen on the flats or in the river were: about 500 Mallards about 2000 Common Mergansers about 1000 Canada Geese Bufflehead Goldeneye 1 female Wood Duck about 12 Canvasback 3 Hooded Mergansers 2 Ruddy Ducks Les ====================== Les Eastman les_eastman@netfox.net Havre de Grace, MD Visit the Harford Bird Club Web Page at http://birdclub.harfordhasit.com Visit the Havre de Grace Soccer Web Page at http://hdgsoccer.harfordhasit.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================