Bald Eagles in Kansas: Feeding and Love versus Soulless Survival of the Fittest

Speaking of WWII, today a Beautiful Bald Eagle hung out in the Eagle Tree. (Video of the eagle tree HERE)
While i have several posts with bald eagles, This one is special; tell you why when i get back to a board. Just needed to post these pics now, along with two buddies i met along the day...

OK
here is the story.
Driving into town; spot the eagle in the Eagle Tree.
Stop and get some pics.
Further in,Yikes!  a newly dead squirrel in the road.
Do what anyone would do:
on the trip back take the squirrel to the eagle. Lay it at the perimeter of the Eagle Tree, Eagle still aperch.
 Less than a half hour later, both the squirrel and the Eagle are gone.
Now:
Is it right to feed an eagle?
Is it right to scare a lion away from a struggling cheetah baby?
Is it right to help a penguin get back home?
Is it right to help a starving african child when a vulture sits nearby, needing dinner?

click to enlarge posters

SO
i was driving on campus --and
Yikes! right in the road:  a bluejay was trying to fly off with a baby sparrow, who was trying to fly away. The mom sparrow was trying to lure baby into some bushes.
A male cardinal and a robin were attacking the bluejay, to little avail.
I threw on the truck's emergency brake, jumped out and was approaching the bluejay who looked at me like, "this does not concern you"--
Uutil i practically touched him, he did not let go of the baby sparrow, whose head was in his beak.
As he flew a tiny bit away, the two other birds kept attacking him until he flew off. the mother coaxed the baby to fly sort of into the bushes and then-
She Came Back to offer take a Thorn Out of my Paw.

I went to the Union to an event going on, related my story, and the Queen of Nonviolence said, "not your best Jane Goodall Moment, eh?"
I said,
"actually,

Since humans are part of the scene, we can do what humans do. That is, we are part of the natural world. Some birds may even say, "dude, let's go live where the humans live, they jump in and save us if we are cute  (translation) enough.

So when the photographer takes a pic of a starving baby, is the baby thinking," YAY! a human who can still walk! i'm saved! and the vulture says, "Yay!it's a journalist...

the NON-Interference clause here

story click HERE

So survival of the fittest--does LOVE figure in? How about the skills of the human?

Met these two fine dogies:
Big pics of them HERE

Finest little Tucker and Chloe

hilarious! this pic is life size.

American Kestrel and other Raptors in Kansas

I saw a Kestrel try to pick off a bird at the feeder yesterday. S/he missed, and hung around for a while looking for a meal.

Kestrel in kansas yard photo taken jan 2011

 Here is a link to a quick tutorial.



 

I wonder if the one i saw is a youth?

Web photos of Kestrels, the smallest of the falcons

 and Sadly,  in a bit of population decline:

Kestrel

I have a lot of pics of other raptors here in the flint hills i will add more, when a get a minute.

http://marysbeagooddogblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/sky-is-always-beautiful.html

http://marysbeagooddogblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/birds-and-sundog-in-january-blizzard.html

here's a couple:

Sweetest Fridays as Winter Arrives a Wee Bit Early: Eagles, Hawks and the Flint Hills

The big raptors are about today. Singly and in pairs, they sit atop poles or nestle down on a good treebranch.  at the bottom of this post i added a bald eagle perching a mile from my house. (click pic to enlarge.)  New Large Bald eagle click HERE

The flint hills
are cold,
   stiff
brisk

alive with movement as everything-

the smallest mammals

 to

  bald eagles

moves around, looking for lunch, getting dinner, find some straw,
get a drink, get eaten.
Those dang Meat-eating animals-
Animal-eating animals.
Thats what they are, they're just ANIMALS!
I wonder why they hate the planet...

  

I saw all kinds of big birds today: red-tailed hawks, giant brown hawks/or eagles with white bellies (although i'm sure that's not their stage name), a bald eagle, soaring, they're always soaring-some Giant Crows-

Vulture at Tuttle Creek Res

And all help themselves, as do the vultures, to a little Fast Food. [That's why Benny Franklin wanted the Wild Turkey instead of the carrion-eating Bald Eagle as the Country's Symbol-a Yechh factor of carrion eaters. although NOW we know them as Beauties}  click on pic to enlarge

bald eagle in the field last summer

two vultures over the lake last summer

The raptors are very touchy.
Even coming out to the porch casts a shadow that will provoke them to leave a perch or a catch instantly. I will have to sit in the truck as a blind someday.
I will get some boxes of granola bars and red wine for warmth, extra batteries, big blankets, select CDs,
and ponder the layout, park the truck
in the perfect spot and make like a duck hunter.

In all ways except the point.

Can We Try Hunting? by Mary Todd

Grow me to eat me,
or hunt me in the wild?

Would it be better to live a cloistered crowded life before being quickly slaughtered,
grown to eat, like a tomato,
[never would have been born if not for the market,]
or
live a Great Wild Migratory life and have the risk and tragedy of being shot out of the sky?

Why do some animals eat meat?
Do they GET to eat meat or do they Have to eat meat?
And the Human?


It is interesting to drive into town and see the Big Birds are here too, why not? (Not as touchy, though.) Go where dinner is.
One of three videos from 2 years ago of a Hawk eating in the Citay



I am leaving
to take some video at an overlook of theTallgrass Prairie, hearted in the Flint Hills.
I will update this post
with the film later.
and add some other raptor photos.
right now-

there is a small wind;
there is a hum or shiver or movement in everything in The Hills-
it seems like something should be captured--atmosphere so fresh and cyclic, or  .
It feels like a special day in the air, in the ground; the water is whiterusched frothyfrozen white. I could hardly complete the drive into town. Hoss was trying to go the other way...

Birdlight by mary todd

“I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive good will proclaim the rule of the land. "And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid."

Martin Luther King Jr.

Bald Eagle sat for a while surveying. I di dnot bother it much; hoping it will come back to this tree when i have a better camera with me.