First off, I couldn’t prove it. Not beyond a reasonable doubt. But I saw what I saw, and although in the moment (it was all unfolding so quickly), there was time enough to observe and even capture a handful of photographs, there was most certainly not time to make sense of everything I was seeing.
But replaying those few fascinating minutes, over and over during the eleven hour-long road back home on Saturday I began to fit some of the pieces together into a possibility that makes a certain amount of sense to me, given the ‘givens.’ More experienced observers may have better, behavioral theories that will tie up all the loose ends with known and proven inputs well beyond my mere anecdotal observations and conjecture, for which I will happily accede, if provided.
Barring that, I really kinda think this might be what a Golden Eagle looks like after having captured and then been properly sprayed by a skunk. That stink is bad enough when driving past at sixty-five. But up close and personal… well, it’s damned hard even to breathe. I have a bit of experience that lingers vividly in the imagintion decades after working as a farm hand on a hay and wheat operation over in Eastern Washington.
When I came upon the unfolding, early morning scene, a very large, dark bird was standing attentively in the unmown weeds and grasses atop an earthen levee, across a ditch and beyond a barb-wire fence. She was maybe seventy five feet east of the wide, gravel shoulder of the two-lane highway running between Burns and Frenchglen.
As I slowed and eased onto the shoulder to try to take in the scene and understand it, she lifted off and flew across the highway in front of me, trailing something larger than a squirrel but smaller than a raccoon …and black. She didn’t fly far, landing in tall grass, maybe fifty feet on the other side of the highway from where I was now idling. I could see her there, on the gradual slope a bit above me, but only partially, only through the cacophony of weeds and grasses. I turned off my engine, raised my camera and waited. I could not see her lethal, taloned feet nor the black, mammalian body she’d held within her rightmost grip while winging her way over there.
A few moments passed. I fired off a few quick frames and remember wishing I could see what she held in her claws. Then she turned uphill rather suddenly and began running, that slightly awkward, side to side lope that eagles seem to use when they need to move quickly without the benefit of their gigantic wings. It seemed odd. I’d never observed a Golden Eagle running through tall grass before, let alone one with a recent ‘kill,’ so of course I was completely immersed in the moment, trying not to miss a thing.
When, after a long pause she spread those powerful wings and lifted off, there was no longer anything in her grasp.
“But, wait …What???”
She flew up to the wooden cross-member of a powerline, alighted and perched there, oddly, never folding in her wings, but instead posturing with them fully spread, arc-ed downward, tail raised. She stayed there for maybe five minutes, never folding in her wings, looking around, passing time. Then she leapt up, caught a breeze and winged her way back to the hillside you can see beyond the powerline in the picture immediately below.
She landed on a large, reddish rock near a trio of large sagebrush and again stood perched there, wings fully extended while more minutes passed.
Eventually, she lifted off, flew low to the ground, hugging the contours of the steep hillside and eventually disappeared to my eyes within the visual maze beyond, leaving me open-mouthed, strangely calm and full to the very brim with questions.
And talk about crazy mornings, this was the third Golden Eagle I’d seen since making coffee in the pre-dawn darkness of camp, early Saturday. I might normally see at least one Golden Eagle during a visit to the Malheur NWR, but often soaring or perched well off in the distance. Seeing three in one morning, along with as many Red-tailed hawks and more than twenty other species of birds by 9:30 am was simply beyond.
( This is the first dispatch of a handful that will come tumbling out here over the next few days, essays and observations gathered in the wilds of Oregon this past week. Some folks are wonderfully methodical, posting at regular, predictable intervals that you can count on like clockwork. I like them, too, count on their reliability and timeliness for a good read. Those of you who have been following along for a while know that I am somewhat less consistent from a timing point of view. Sometimes things come in spurts. And those new here, if you choose to return will perhaps begin to see the ‘why’ of that. One can make oneself available to magic on a regular basis, but only with the understanding that magic inevitably chooses you, chooses the times and places that it will reveal itself, make itself available to your eager and careful eyes. Either way, I’m delighted that you’re here.
More to come, if you’re up to it …soonish.)
Thanks for being open to the magic, David, and to sharing it when’er it chooses you! I’m here for it. 😊
Ok, though Kimberly Warner has never tackled this particular topic , in her series ‘in defense of’, (given time she might have). I am taking up the cause , presenting ;
‘in defense of David Perry’s sighting’. Lending credence ; his eyes have not deceived his mind. I also found a few research articles siting Golden Eagles preying on skunks.
Sometimes due to their main food source in a particular area being on the decline, so they adapt. 🧐😊
https://www.serpentina.khosravi.net/?p=1920