Saturday, August 3, 2013

OBSERVATION--Inside Passage part 8

Long before people discovered plants such as…
lilies and raspberries,

 …and confined them to the their gardens like I did with these…

 they grew free and wonderful in the wild.

One of my ambitions on this trip was to capture photos such as these of the wild ones in their natural habitat.

So I spent some time walking about with two Nikon necklaces plus a Canon point-and-shoot in my back pocket.  I took a bit of ribbing for this.

Nevertheless, when I was on the foredeck of the David B preparing to take a quick video of Christine lowering of the anchor,

I was ready when we saw an eagle on shore.
  He’d caught a big dogfish shark and was getting ready to have it for dinner.

He seemed a little uneasy about his situation and kept looking up in the trees.

Soon he hauled his catch to a nearby stump.

That wasn’t good enough so after taking a few bites he carried the shark, which must have weighed half as much as he did, off to someplace up in the nearby cliffs.

After stashing his meal he quickly came winging back.

Then we saw his reason for acting edgy.  A vulture came out of the trees to steal the fish.  The two big birds went to battle in the air before our eyes.

I was able to get in a few photographs of the action.  It was much more dramatic than the berries and flowers.

 The eagle soon sent the vulture packing and went back to finish his feast.

I never did get a video of Christine lowering the anchor.


Later that evening I did take some video of George the Dentist reeling in a dogfish of his own.  When he got it aboard he pinned it down and carefully removed the hook from the small shark’s mouth with his tools and released it.  I’ve seen dogfish caught before, but this was the first time I’d seen one get such gentle treatment and such skilled hook removal.

8 comments:

TALON said...

Love the video, Leenie! And what cool captures of the eagle and the vulture. Must have been an amazing sight. I try to plant as many native plants as I can and no surprise they love the garden and want to claim the whole thing as theirs. :)

joeh said...

Great pictorial story of the Eagle!

I would have dropped my camera and missed it all.

Anzu said...

Thank you for sharing so wild nature in your country. w(*゚o゚*)w !
I could enjoy your interesting video with funny music.

Jenny Woolf said...

Funny video!
I found some wild raspberries the other day, it was quite a pleasure.
Your eagle sequence was amazing. They're such interesting birds to watch, I think they often get into conflict with other large birds about things they have caught.

Joanne Noragon said...

You can go back again and again; we love going with you. The big birds are an incredible sight. Big fish, too, I suppose. Funny video.

Anonymous said...

Fantastic shots of the eagle...and a lovely video. Fish heads...I'll be singing it all day.

Alica said...

Wow! Who can say they've seen that...and eagle and a vulture fighting over a meal. I'm glad the eagle won...and glad you captured it for us!

Carla said...

Wackadoodle song to go along with the catch/release of the little dogfish!! :)
Amazing photos of the raptors! Glad the eagle gets to keep his catch. Of course the Turkey vulture never stood a chance. You "necklaces" definitely paid off.