This evening as I biked home from work along the bike path between Floral Avenue and Cayuga Inlet I was surprised by an unusual bird on the narrow lawn between the bike path and the water. Often there are families of geese, but not today. I was tired, distracted by events of the day, and not really paying attention, so I was surprised by an adult BALD EAGLE which unfolded and took flight within a couple feet of me. It carried a substantial plucked carcass over the water and south out of view. It left behind a circle of feathers 2 or 3 feet in diameter. They were mostly fluff, but they also included a few which looked like breast feathers from a female or young MALLARD. There were also several clumps which included half-grown and largely sheathed flight feathers. I don’t know whether this was an adult duck which had dropped all its flight feathers and was in the process of regrowing them or it was a young bird just growing them for the first time.
- - Dave Nutter -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
