Week 8 – Bald Eagle

I had the pleasure of spending sunday with a few friends at the Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area just north of Salt Lake City, Utah. We had come to see the Bald Eagles congregating along the open water to scavenge on invasive carp that biologists were attempting to eradicate. Man did we see some eagles! In total we saw at least several dozen Bald Eagles taking advantage of this easy food resource. Most people don’t know that all eagles, and especially Bald Eagles, rely on scavenging for a large portion of their diet. This is part of the reason why eagles (as well as condors) are susceptible to lead poisoning after scavenging deer and elk carcasses containing lead fragments from spent rifle ammunition. If you would like to learn more about this issue, our 1-hour documentary, Scavenger Hunt, detailing the challenges the endangered California Condor faces from lead poisoning will be released on DVD and several online outlets by Cinema Libre Studio Tuesday, March 5th. On today’s menu for the Bald Eagle however: delicious, rotting carp! I managed to get really close to a juvenile Bald Eagle to snap some pictures for this weeks blog. Probably too close as it was apparent this eagle had been fed by people at some point and had subsequently lost its fear of humans, which is never a good thing. Within the next week, I will be posting another photo blog entry documenting some of the other species we saw at Farmington Bay. If you are in the Salt Lake City area, I definitely recommend visiting this fantastic destination.

Juvenile Bald Eagle. Photograph by Neil Paprocki.

All of the previous 52-week blog photos can be found at the Wild Lens blog or on Flickr.