Welcome to #EagleFriday, hosted by yours truly. Share anything about eagles and you will receive my resteem and massive, LIFE CHANGING upvote. No foolin' :-)
Today I have some photos and a story about an injured Bald Eagle I found and photographed over a period of three days. I first saw the eagle sitting on the ground near the shore, not moving. A group of people were gathered around taking photos, and they were close... too close. The bird seemed to ignore them. Why didn't it fly away? Eventually it did fly away and I didn't think too much more about it. I still hadn't seen the photos, and I had not yet seen the bird close up.
I used to have a lot of photos, but many have been deleted, including all my shots from the first day. I'll start with the first one I have which is from January 14th, 2016. You can't see eagle's face here. That's good - trust me. Some of the photos which follow are a little hard to look at. In the upper left is a seagull which is chasing the eagle. This was taken on day two.
Wounded Eagle, lower middle of photo
Although the bird was acting strange, I didn't know what was wrong with it until I got my first shots up on the computer screen. Then I immediately called the Wild Animal Rehabilitation Centre in Victoria. (Wild ARC).
They told me to call them back if I ever found the bird on the ground again, and they would come and try to collect it. Over the next couple of days I spotted the eagle, but it was always flying.
On day three, Wounded Eagle heads out to sea - flying air support for the Navy ship on the horizon? No, I just liked how things lined up here. Still no face visible.
Above: now you can see the problem. The final photos were taken on the third and last day I saw the eagle. It was always in the same area, which is near Clover Point in Victoria. Click for a full-screen view if you want...
Something has happened to its beak. Was it damaged in a fight with another bird? Was it shot by someone? If you look closely you will see that the top of its beak is hanging by a thread. If the beak falls off, the bird will be unable to eat and it will die. No - an eagle's beak does not grow back. If you've ever heard this, please understand that it's just a silly internet myth.
Shootings have been known to happen. In one case there was a kind of happy ending. Watch this short video to see how a team of scientists worked for months to build a 3-D printed replacement beak for a bald eagle.
Every now and then something happens which restores my faith in humanity. As for Wounded Eagle, after the third day I never saw him again.