My two youngest sons and I were recently walking along the top of the dike system that protects their home town from the river floods. I had just come back from my birding birthday trip and we were getting caught up on all the silly things that dads and sons talk about when I saw a large bird just above the trees on the other side of the river. Turkey vulture, I thought, but then the wings didn't seem right at all. They were beating steadily, but they seemed straight and slower than a vulture, without any V-shape (dihedral in birder lingo). Then lower, near the water, I saw the second one.

Before I could blurt it out, I saw the white on the head of the first one, then the second, and white on at least one tail. "Guys! Look across the river, two adult bald eagles!"

"Wow... cool..." And that's when we saw the loon, though at first I wasn't sure it was a loon. It was some sort of water fowl, larger than a duck sitting on the river not far off shore, and the two regals were heading right toward it. Just before it reached them, however, sploosh! It dove.

"Okay, it's a diving duck of some kind, or else a loon." The two great birds of prey swept past and the loon came up from the water and raised itself high, beating the water off its wings. "Definitely looks like a loon, white breast, and probably black on top, but it's pretty far off and hard to tell." The eagles were bigger and easier to identify. They turned around quickly and flew back; splash! Again it went under and eluded their grasping talons.

You see, bald eagles don't dive under water. At least I've never seen one do it. Osprey will hover over the river and then dive straight down, completely submerging themselves, but the eagles, go for what's near the surface. They find the fish (well, usually it's fish, but today it was loon), and fly just along the top of the water, reaching down with their powerful talons to secure their prey. But this loon was apparently able to dive deeply enough to foil them every time.

They tried yet a third time unsuccessfully and casually gave up the chase, retreating to the branches of one of the many large trees that lined the bank. You might suppose that eagles are lazy, after all they are often seen thieving and taking fish right out of the grip of nearby gulls, but really, by nature's rule, they are just smart. Why keep wasting much needed energy on an impossible endeavor? If at first you don't succeed, try no more than twice more, and then save your breath, as well as your energy for the breakfast flight in the morning.

Now I am wondering if they were migrants or locals. Migrants really need the energy for the flight, so as much as that loon would have fed them, it really wasn't worth wasting precious calories on a lost cause. On the other hand, Bald Eagles have been increasing in number in Pennsylvania, thanks to the many releases that have been done here over the last decade or two.

When we got back to the car, we drove over to the other side of the river and looked down. Couldn't see any sign of the eagles or which tree they were in, but we could clearly see the loon (another bird I've seen both migrating and living on the Susquehanna), just relaxing in about the same spot she inhabited before the big birds disturbed her evening swim. Why didn't she fly or find another place to hide? Probably because she knew she was safest right there, where she could keep her eye on the big boys in the tree, and where she knew she could out dive them.

I am always so thrilled when my kids get to witness these amazing moments.

Hi Sonofwalt-

Your eagles have been in the neighborhood awhile. Or at least one of their relatives. I spotted my first PA bald eagle from the turnpike near the Harrisburg interchange a couple years ago. It made my day, even though there was no one to share it with.

Birds of prey are indeed smart. My office overlooks a bird feeder. Red tails sit on the roof of the building and swoop toward the feeder. Their goal is not to catch their prey directly. When the birds are startled, they scatter in all directions. Every once in a while one will mistake the office window for wide open spaces. The birds knock themselves silly against the window and fall to earth stunned. The redtail casually flies over and has dinner.

All of which is not as dramatic as the pergrin that actually does catch prey on the fly.

If only bird watching paid the bills...

Seeing a Peregrine take a bird on the wing and then pass it, in a remarkable aerial acrobatic movement to one of its young has stayed with me since my teens.

Pretty much in the same way as when I walked along a beach for the first time in the Pacific Rim National Park on Vancouver Island...and watched in awe as two Bald Eagles harrassed an Osprey and chased it away...remains fresh in my mind several years later