A Bald Eagle? In Tucson?? Really???

Really! A juvenile Bald Eagle showed up and is hanging around.

Bald Eagles are rare and unusual visitors to Southern Arizona. We just don’t have many lakes filled with fish that could sustain those birds. Over the years and every once in a while, a Bald Eagle does wander into our area but it never hangs around for long. There’s just not enough for them to eat in Tucson. Even though people living in many other places in the US see Bald Eagles regularly, they are not a Tucson thing. Imagine the local excitement when a juvenile Bald Eagle showed up at Danny Lopez Park on Silverbell Road on January 19!! Birders and non-birders have been flocking to the park to try to catch a glimpse of that bird.

I went to the park on the second day after it had been spotted. Unfortunately, the bird was not in the area when I went looking for it. Of course, about an hour after I left it was reported to have returned to the lake. I tried my luck again two days later and was rewarded with some great looks of this magnificent bird. It was in the tall eucalyptus tree on the small island where the Great Blue Herons traditionally nest.

When people think of Bald Eagles, they think of a bird with a “bald” white head and dark body. This bird does not look like that. Bald Eagles may take up to five years to achieve their adult plumage. The bird in my photos may be in its first year or perhaps half-way through its second year. It is hard to exactly age the plumage of a bald eagle as there is much variation. An article in the ‘Avian Report’ site explains how to age a Bald Eagle. That report includes the following graphic:

In any case, this is a very large and handsome bird. While I was watching, it spent a long time perched in one spot, looking around. It has been reported to have regularly caught large fish that are stocked in this City of Tucson urban fishing lake. It has also been seen eating an American Coot. Sometimes the Eagle was looking down, sometimes it was looking across the water.

The photo above shows the Eagle leaning forward. Then, Bald Eagle sat straight up. In this position, you can see a good amount of white feathering that appears on the bird’s neck.

At one point the Bald Eagle flew from the north side of the large eucalyptus tree to the southside. I walked down the shore of the lake to try to get a good look at it. There were three other photographers there. We watched the Eagle picking at something. Looking through our camera lenses, we all were shocked to see what it was interested in! The Bald Eagle was peering closely at an artificial fishing lure in the form of a small yellow fish that included a triple hook on each end of the lure!

The fish lure was fake, but it looked real to the bird. The Bald Eagle began working intently on releasing what it must have imagined was a small fish that it could eat. The thought of the Bald Eagle swallowing a fishing lure with two triple-hooks on it was horrifying. We knew nothing good would come of that and we watched helplessly. We held our breaths and there was a combination of swearing and praying going on.

A closer look of the same image shows a number of fishing lines hanging from the branches and the Eagle holding one of the triple-hooks in its beak. It may have been trying to bite the hooks off of the fish.

What happened?? To be continued........Hold your breath. The next post will reveal the next moments.......