bald eagle flight

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By Jordan Lake Dam: Bald Eagle Parent 03/03/2019
It takes a lot of nesting material to keep a bald eagle’s nest clean and insulated.
I am not sure which parent bald eagle this is, but he certainly has a large load of straw.
To collect the material, the bird finds rows of the straw on the shoreline or sometimes on a sandbar.
The eagle then flies across the patch, talons open, and snags the straw while flying.
Reminds me of a plane catching the tail wire on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier.

By Jordan Lake Dam: 1-year-old bald eagle, 4 photos, 03-02-2019
The young bald eagle, right at a year in age, had caught a fish from the Haw River, right below the Jordan Lake Dam.
 
 
 
 
Then the youngster had to make a mad dash up into the trees if he was going to keep the fish for his breakfast.
 
 
 
 
The eaglet got to the tree branch with the fish firmly under his right foot.
 
 
 
 
It was a small fish and the youngster quickly tore it apart and finished all but the piece dangling from his left foot.  
He was one proud-of-himself bald eagle!

By Jordan Lake Dam: Bald Eagle Death Spiral 02/18/2019
Bald Eagle Death Spiral
As they mature at the age of 5, Bald Eagles use the Death Spiral to determine the fitness of a potential mate.
The sky challenge is there to prove to each eagle that the other one is just as arrogant, assured, and fit as the other.
The eagles clasp each other’s talons and dare the other one to let go first.
The difference in the size of the smaller male to the larger female causes the birds to spiral around their axis.
Sometimes, the drive to win is so strong that the hold is not broken and the birds crash into the ground or the water.
Immature eagles practice this maneuver all the time.  In this case it is a pair of four-year-old bald eagles.
Death can occur.  These two immature eagles broke the clasp just as they got to the tree line.