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Barely Escaping Bald Eagles (November 2007) I have always been drawn to the field. For the longer one is outdoors, the greater the chances of rewarding adventures and making unique personal discoveries. July 10, 2007 was one of those special days. I had tent camped the night before near the Bechler Ranger Station, in the southwestern corner of Yellowstone National Park. The goal for the trip was to check on the status of nesting Peregrine Falcons (Falco peregrinus) in this remote corner of Yellowstone. So I got up in the dark and broke camp and headed out of the trailhead at 0430 hours, with a headlamp turned on, accompanied by occasional noise to scare away the bears. The early start also gave me the opportunity to avoid the heat, since this was a very hot summer. As I entered the Bechler Meadows, the rolling mountains to the east and the Grand Tetons to the southeast were identified only by silhouette, and the orange sun at this point was far from rising. After about an hour of hiking through the long meadows, I looked out and could see far ahead of me two small white objects resembling snow, and a huge dark mass in a large lodgepole pine. As I approached these objects, and as the light brightened, I could make out two perched adult Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) and one black eaglet in a nest. I was still a long distance from the nest, yet the adults were furiously flying low over the nest in an attack mode. Their behavior was obviously a reaction to some form of a predator, but I knew it couldn't have been me because I wasn't close to the nest. So I approached within a half mile of the nest and watched this remarkable behavior, but curiosity got the best of me. There was no time or enough light for photographs, only enough time to just observe and capture the moment in my mind. In seconds, it became obvious what was happening. A large, dark object was climbing the 60-foot lodgepole pine eagle nest tree. The dark object later turned out to be black in color, in fact a 250-pound black bear boar. I could see the black bear constantly stopping its ascent of the tree, lifting its nose, and smelling its way to the nest. The black bear was nearly in the nest when the Bald Eagles attacked with great vigor. The eaglet stood on the far end of the nest as the adult eagles worked in tandem to disengage the formidable predator. I could see a couple small feathers falling to the ground from the nest. The black bear was less than a few feet from the nest. The eagle attacks eventually paid off, and the bear kept ducking its head, nearly falling out of the tree, until it finally scurried down and ran off into the forest. Later on, after the eaglet fledged, I did manage to photograph the bear claw marks on the tree. It was an event that is rare to witness no matter how long one spends in the field. I was lucky to see it, but luckier still was the black bear barely escaping Bald Eagles. More short stories from "Lucky Feathers -- Adventures and Experiences of a Yellowstone Ornithologist," will be featured in forthcoming issues of Montana Best Times. In the meantime enjoy Montana birds! And the Best of Big Sky Birding to you!
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