Bald eagles are only achieve their white headed between three and five years and prior to that they are able to sit in trees unnoticed. When soaring high an immature eagle is a little more noticeable. Still majestic with their wing span but something is missing.
Seeing a bald eagle swim is not a common sight on our wildlife tours maybe once or twice a summer. But this morning we saw three take a salmon to shore. An eagle will catch a fish in their talon that is too heavy for them to carry and they will swim to shore with it so they can eat it. They use a butterfly like swim stroke. In the first photo it is almost to the shore and the second show the eagle lifting the fish further up the shore. In this case its mate came down and took the salmon, as it was to exhausted to fight. The happy ending was that it did get to share the fish once it recovered.
I always try to find an interesting location to eat our picnic lunch on a whale watching tour. This day it was with a mother bald eagle that had just caught a small salmon and was sharing her catch with this years offspring. When any animal / bird has food and you are not intrusive they tend to ignore your presence so we enjoyed watching this exchange of food for about thirty minutes.
In late August Grizzly Bear Lodge uses viewing platforms on the Glendale River for our grizzly bear watching trips. At this time the salmon are in the rivers and many of the eagles have left the open ocean and feeding on herring to the easier scavenging on salmon remains from a grizzly bear kill. Scavenging is the most energy efficient way for getting meal. It is a matter of sitting in a tree until one is hungry and then moving to the river bank to eat.
The Bald Eagle is a very prominent bird in our area. It takes them approximately 5 years to get their white head and white tail feathers. Before that they are a drab brown colour and often look larger then their adult counterparts because of their “poofy plumage.” The eagles mate for life and it is very hard to tell male from female, although the female is usually larger. We see them on all our tours both in Johnstone Strait and Knight Inlet.
Thanks to Julie for giving us this three part picture of a bald eagle taking flight. They truly are a beautiful bird and we are lucky to have such a healthy population in our area. Guides often joke “we only point out the first twenty”
Bald Eagles are a common and always welcome sight in our area. They are an opportunistic feeders and although they don’t migrate they do tend to move around with the food. In the spring we see large numbers of them in Blackfish Sounds feeding on the vast amounts of herring. As the salmon enter the rivers many of these eagles do the same feeding on the carcases of spawned out salmon. Eagles mate for life so when you see two of these birds together they are usually a pair. It is hard to tell male from female in these birds, although the female eagle tends to be larger and has a slightly deeper call.
Out in Johnstone Strait it is common to get what are called “herring balls.” Basically these are schools of small baitfish that have been pushed to the surface by fish and diving birds such as aucklets and murrelets. The fish appear to boil on the surface and are easy prey for gulls and bald eagles.
The Grizzly Bears aren’t the only ones who enjoy the abundant salmon run. Birds such as eagles, Great Blue Herons, Gulls, Kingfishers and Mergansers are often seen in the river areas. What isn’t eaten by the animals is flushed into the estuary, providing food for other marine creatures such as crabs, sculpins, cod and Halibut. Finally the rotten fish is distributed into the forest by Bears and other animals providing natural fertilization to the forest floor. These wild salmon truly are the backbone of our coastal ecosystem.
Just like that our season has come to an end. I would like to thank all of our wonderful guests and staff who made this year a huge success. I am happy to stay that all of our team is planning to return next season. We are actively taking bookings, with dates starting June 1 2025. Hope to see many of you next season.
The wildlife viewing this season was awesome. A couple highlights that come to mind was the shear number of salmon in our local rivers, as well as the abundance of Resident Orca. With salmon returns being so strong this year, we were happy to see bears in excellent condition. By the end of our season most of the bears had packed on a lot of weight and were getting very “picky” about what parts of the salmon they would eat. Hopefully this will translate into more cubs being born this winter. Another positive was the weather conditions. We had enough rain to keep our fire risks low and it made for some excellent wild berries. The bears took full advantage of this, with the berry season extending far past its normal conclusion. This did mean that we had to work hard to find bears during our summer season, (as they were often feeding on the berries deep into the forest), but moving forward it is excellent that they had such an abundant food supply. The Humpbacks also didn’t disappoint, with great numbers and a few new calves returning with their mothers to feed. After a slower year for resident Orca sightings, this season was one of the best that I can remember. In fact as Im writing this the A62 and A23’s are still being spotted in the area by dedicated biologists. Strong numbers of Chinook and Chum salmon are providing them with a steady food source. There are a lot of positive signs and we are hopeful that 2025 will be another great season.
Over the winter and spring we will be doing some repairs and maintenance. We plan on having a new cedar front deck built in time for the 2025 season, as well as new ceilings and paint in parts of the lodge and rooms. Theres always projects on the go.
Felix, Julien, Ryan, Zack and Myself all look forward to welcoming guest in June. See everyone soon.
Angus Reid
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