Friday 23 August 2013

[Maine-birds] Phippsburg raptors


Phippsburg, Me map 6 Totman Cove
 
Raptor Rapture:
 
While eating dinner on our deck overlooking the cove (crabmeat and corn on the cob) an adult Bald eagle landed in a nearby tree about 75 feet away. It's still there and has been now for almost two hours. While watching it, its mate turned up cruising the cove. The second eagle was making the flock of Laughing and Herring Gulls working the tide line very screechy and nervous.
There were 9 Osprey fishing the same low tide for what looked like mostly Dabs. The perched eagle screamed every time an osprey came near it. A pair of Herring gulls that roosts on our pier mobbed the perched eagle a few times.
BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!
A PEREGRINE FALCON did all it could do to kill a Laughing gull! No kidding, folks! All this while eating dinner! The peregrine swooped and dove repeatedly at the gull which conducted all kinds of maneuvers to avoid being killed. The Peregrine actually pegged it right into the water a few times, but the gull got away. I don't know if it lived or not. The ferocity of the attack, though not immediately effective may have killed the gull anyway. The gull was screaming a call I have never heard from those birds before, but then, I've never watched a Peregrine try to kill one, either. The Bald eagle watched all this and never flinched.
Amazing drama of three raptors all at one time.
 
Oh ya, and six Ruby Throated hummingbirds. Snooze.
 
Robin R Robinson
Blown Away In The Burg

 

0 comments:

Post a Comment