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 ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]