I've also been enjoying the thread – a couple un-scientific anecdotes:

-- At Wellington Reservoir this past winter, I watched a bald eagle shift
its perch several times.  The waterfowl complained loudly, but stayed in the
water and just shifted their own positions to create a wider buffer zone of
water between the eagle and themselves. (Especially the coots.)
But the gulls always took flight, and only landed once the eagle had settled
into a tree.  Finally, the eagle took off once more, clearing the gulls, and
then fished repeatedly over the area they had left.  When it came up
empty-taloned after a few tries, it disappeared over the trees.

-- At Cuyahoga Valley NP this summer, a friend and I were walking the
towpath past the bald eagle nest in the heron rookery when a loud ruckus
started.  We stopped just as an adult eagle landed in a tree near the
towpath with what looked like the carcass of a young great blue heron.  (It
then moved to the nest to feed the eaglet.)
We'd assumed the heron had been nabbed alive from one of the nests.  But I
later had a conversation with someone who'd monitored heron nests further
south in the park.  She often saw the bodies of great blue heron young
hanging from the outside of the nests (perished? fallen? pushed?).
I now wonder if it just wasn't another case of a bald eagle picking up an
easy meal.

(At Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Denver a few years ago, I saw eagles sitting
in the electric towers within striking distance of the prairie dog town. 
But I was told they often just sit there and wait for a hawk to catch a
prairie dog, and then steal it.)

Cheers,
Rita Schneider
Cuyahoga County

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