[Birdtalk] Fwd: Other Sights at Antelope

[Utah Birds]

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Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 17:10:39 -0600 (MDT)

It was submitted by Kris Purdy.
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Subject: Other Sights at Antelope

Email_Address: kristinpurdy at comcast.net

Message: Gee, I missed that beautiful sunset that Tim photographed on Antelope Island Causeway last night, but at least caught the sun on its first appearance this morning. I saw about the same species of shorebirds with no rare birds. I did, however, see an unexpected rendition of the term 'shorebirding'.

North of mile 5 or so, many flocks of shorebirds began to billow off the mudflats and fly northwest. "Whoopee!", I thought, "Who's the predator?" I expected a falcon; I hoped for a jaeger :). Scanning for dark birds turned up only a few young gulls that were flying with the shorebird flocks. Then I saw it; the predator was neither falcon nor jaeger. An adult Bald Eagle was lumbering low across the mudflat with deep wingbeats and not appearing to have a particular sense of urgency.

The eagle made a wide circle and settled down alone, as predators do, away from the long ragged lines of shorebirds. The eagle stood there a long time. But then the bird launched again, caught up with the fleeing flocks, and flew above a lone avocet. The eagle swooped down at the avocet and missed. But the attempt was enough to ground the avocet.

The eagle flared in a steeply banked turn, dive-bombed the avocet, knocked it over and landed. A quick step or two closed the distance between predator and prey and I'll have to assume the eagle despatched the shorebird quickly. The drama took place at quite a distance north where the water ends and I couldn't exactly see what happened. In fact, I wouldn't have seen any of this if I hadn't panned with my scope and picked up the eagle when the shorebirds were billowing.

The eagle faced away from the causeway toward Howard Slough WMA while appearing to pluck or eat its prey for about 10 minutes. Next it turned to the side so I could see it in profile, grabbed at the prey with the beak and grasped it with its talons. The eagle took off again with deep and heavy flapping and circled above the Howard Slough shore for quite some time. I finally grew bored watching the white-headed white-tailed speck in my scope and moved to something else. I was hoping to see the direction the eagle headed and never did; the bird just circled higher and higher above Howard Slough in the 10-15 minutes that I watched it fly.

I don't think I've seen a Bald Eagle in Utah in July. Kayakers discovered a Bald Eagle nest in Ogden Bay WMA this year or last and I'll assume the bird I saw shorebirding today was one of the pair that nested there. I saw one of them at Ogden Bay on May 18.

Another bird item of interest today was the phenomenal number of Bank Swallows congregating on the patch of phragmites that the fake buffalo overlooks at the island end of the causeway. I'd conservatively say hundreds of swallows were perched on the phragmites heads there today. What a swarm. Most are Bank; a few are Tree and Barn. A great place to study them is on the concrete guardrails of the No Swimming bridge. All three species landed there and WOW! Can you ever tell how petite Bank Swallows are. Although they're only a half inch shorter than Tree Swallows, they weigh one-third less. The Tree Swallows looked like King Kong next to their smaller cousins.

Kris
   
   
   

       
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