Edmonds Eagle Drama

[Bill Anderson]

Thursday morning (6/19/14) I was hanging out on Sunset Ave. while my son Daren was working out at the gym. I should be doing that as well, but I find photography more interesting. I noticed a tug pulling a raft of logs south in the Sound.


I scanned the raft with my 100-400L lens as I have heard of our local wildlife hitching a ride on log rafts. In doing so, I thought I saw a lone adult bald eagle sitting on the raft.


The tug was moving quite slowly, so I had time to break out the 7D+ 500L + 1.4x teleconverter + tripod to attempt some telephoto shots of the eagle. In going so, I found a second eagle, which may have been in distress. Close examination of my photos revealed that the eagle's foot or leg may have become entangled in a cable or trapped between two logs which had rolled over. The eagle spent a lot of time flapping its wings without taking off.

 

[Bill Anderson]

When I returned home after picking Daren up, I called the radio dispatcher for the Washington State Dept. of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) to report the situation and e-mailed them several of my photos. I was hoping that they had a boat in the vicinity that could investigate.

Daren and I met Terry for lunch at McDonalds. I told him about the incident and that I thought I saw the same log raft off Edmonds as I was driving to McD's. After finishing lunch, we drove to Marina Park to check it out.

The tug was fighting a strong out-going tide and had only progressed 1-2 miles in the hour and a half since I reported the incident to DFW. My photos from Marina Park showed both eagles sitting upright in the same location on the raft as when I saw them on Sunset Ave. I could not tell if either were injured.



The two eagles are on the far right side of the photo.




I phoned DFW to update the situation. If I hear the end of this story through my contacts at DFW, I'll pass it along.

 

[Terry O]

It will be interesting to see if DFW responds.