HagaFinn's BlogSpot: Ducks One

As Oregon State Beavers (alumni of Oregon State University) we usually won't talk about Ducks as the University of Oregon Ducks are the state rivals of Oregon State, but this will be an exception. Neither one of these mascots really instill much in the way of fear, but they did try to make Benny Beaver look a little more fierce in this recent make-over.

Benny Beaver - Mascot of Oregon State University

Donald Duck (thanks to a 1947 agreement with Walt Disney)

It was a quiet stay at home day in Bayview and about all we did was work on the computer and feed a few Stellars jays. The one that our neighbors call PJ is the most aggressive of all the jays and will regularly take peanuts from Neil's hands and chase off other jays whenever he gets a chance. He (she?) gets more than their fair share of peanuts, so it is a wonder that he isn't too big to fly!

Anyway, back to the eagle versus duck game we watched this morning in Gastineau Channel. We were looking out the window, and we saw two eagles diving at something in the channel; when we got our binoculars out, we could see that the eagles were trying to kill and eat a diving duck in the channel at low tide. Every time the eagles dove to try to grab it with their talons, it would dive under the water. We watched them diving on this single duck about thirty times, and while there were a few close calls, the duck got away once the eagles got tired of diving on it. Kinda gives another meaning to "duck and cover".

This Isn't Our Photo, but Exactly What We Were Watching

Pamela and I saw this same thing many years ago on the Cross Admiralty Canoe Route. We were just paddling out of Salt Lake on the way towards Mitchell Bay when we came upon a mother common merganser duck with seven young ducklings. We watched a bald eagle dive on the chicks about a dozen times, and each time she gathered them up and they dove at the last minute. They got away that time, but we saw another mother merganser in the same area the next day, but with only four chicks. So who knows if it was the same group or not.