Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Bald Eagle Bath Time

















Today's series of eagle images shows a behavior that we saw several times on our trip to Alaska.  I'm sure they do it here in Minnesota too, but this is the first time that I've seen an eagle taking a bath!  I've seen gulls do this a lot near where I live, but never been lucky enough to see an eagle do it.  We had been watching a group of eagles feeding on a salmon and this eagle was the last one remaining.  It got the last bit of edible remains from that salmon.  

Almost immediately after it finished eating, the eagle walked out into the water and repeatedly began to duck its head and most of its body under the water, then shake around in the water while partially submerged.  The eagle did this many times over the course of 15 minutes.  When it apparently decided it had bathed long enough, it walked back up onto the rocky shallows and proceeded to shake its wings off several times before taking flight and leaving the scene.  We felt very fortunate to have such an up-close view of this behavior.  We were only about 50 feet away from the eagle the entire time.  I have video of this as well.  Look for my eagle video to be posted sometime in the near future.  
































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