The vocalizations were incredible, & i shouted to the other two that i had the Eagle in sight.
i was running towards them, & something must have clicked in one or the other or both, to quit hanging on, because something very dangerous was approaching, me!
Suddenly they were apart, & one Eagle very quickly went striding & flapping away til he reached an opener area & was able to fly away.
The remaining Eagle appeared injured.
He was also walking, but not really flapping, just sort of using his wings a bit to give him more momentum.
i maybe should have waited for the other two so we could have circled the Eagle & blocked the exits, but i wanted to not lose sight of him as he ran away, so i went running after him.
He was having trouble maneuvering, but was still managing to really get away from me.
He had a sort of lumbering limping gait, there seemed to be trouble with the right side or the right wing.
He got himself into an open clearing & then onto the driveway & was just able to get enough momentum that he could get off the ground & soar away.
DARN!
Off he went towards the water.
We three walked that way too, looking for him in the bushes or Trees, but it was hard to see as the sun was low & in our eyes.
We got down to the beach & saw no sign of him.
wren went to get binoculars, our helper went home after showing us the foto she had taken.
i decided to look at the spot where they had been, to see what i could see & to look for a Cougar stash.
i had totally forgotten about being afraid of a Cougar!
At the site, there were some gorgeous mushrooms, that wren said were edible.
Maybe she will remind me what they are called?
Some of them were broken at the stem.
There were also numerous little feathers on the ground & caught on bushes & grass, down & small covert feathers.
But i saw nothing like a Cougar stash, & as wren pointed out, no smell of one, either.
So we concluded that these Eagles had fought, talon locked, & crashed to the ground!
One seemed fine & flew away, but the other was at least badly bruised, if not broken or sprained or dislocated, also perhaps punctured from talons.
i*m a bit foggy on the next sequence of events, but i believe wren came back from her binocular look saying she had seen an Eagle perched low down in a Tree.
Low down would fit the Eagle we were looking for, who had been on the ground & appeared injured.
She also mentioned two parallel fences, & that maybe the Eagle had gone down between them.
These are fences that separate the Lodge property from the next door neighbour.
You could hear a radio playing from that person*s yard/home.
So someone was there.
wren offered to jump the chain link fence, while i was to walk outside the fence & try to come at her from the other end, hopefully trapping the Eagle between us for capture.
Ah, that would have been perfect.
i walked that whole fence line with great dismay, seeing how thick the clump of Blackberries was, between me & the chainlink fence.
So i kept going til i found a spot where a Tree had come down & crushed the fence.
Should i go over the fence there?
But then i realized the fence ended, not too much further from where i now was standing.
& i couldn*t believe my eyes, but when i peered through the last bit of fence, there was the Eagle standing on the lawn!
i shouted to wren, & she was on the other side of the Eagle, coming towards me.
We had him!
wren was on the lawn, approaching slowly.
i was up on a sort of berm, the Eagle had been up there but then jumped down into the yard to get away from me.
wren told me to hold up, & she approached slowly from the other side.
There was lovely thick Salal there, if we could herd the Eagle into it, it would slow him down & make him easier to capture.
But no!
He went motoring off on foot & found another clearing & a driveway & i went running after him.
wren was too far away, but she shouted go! go! go!
Well, i*m not much of a runner anymore, but i went lumbering after that Eagle with my net outstretched.
He was so close!
But he outran me & was able to get air & float off away from us again.
Darn!
We went hunting for him down the driveway, which ended up being the driveway to the High Salal properties.
It felt hopeless.
But we lucked out & spotted the Eagle perched low down in a Tree again!
Maybe 15' up, which is low down for an Eagle.
A car was coming down the driveway so wren flagged him down to explain what was happening & to enlist his help.
i was standing there keeping the Eagle in sight.
He seemed very flighty & nervous, as though he might just take off at any moment.
i remembered that i had my camera on me, so while i waited, i might as well take some fotos!
But then i decided to take a video.
Here is the Eagle.
wren is talking to the man driving the truck.
november 1 2014 11:46 - injured Eagle in High Salal driveway
