Eagle brings down paraglider over Himalayas

Incredible footage from a helmet camera shows the moment two eagles attacked a paraglider over the Himalayas only for one to become tangled in the cables, causing both bird and man to come crashing down to earth.

Vladimir Tsar'kov was paragliding over the Indian Himalayas when the two birds of prey swooped, one flying below him and the other continuing up into his parachute and becoming entangled.

With his chute rendered ineffective, the 25-year-old Russian was forced to deploy his reserve parachute as he struggled to regain a modicum of control and began to plummet to the ground.

Fortunately the experienced thrillseeker had the skill to bring himself down in a clearing, although he did not come to a complete halt until he had been dragged him through some uncomfortable looking undergrowth.

After confirming his own wellbeing, Mr Tsar'kov turned his attention to the still trapped eagle.

It took him nearly ten minutes to untangle the bird, which then flew off apparently unscathed.

The Himalayas are popular with paragliders and flights often take place close to the eagles, which gliders use to guide them to columns of warm air that help them soar higher.

Read on ...

Walkers spot missing bald eagle Pilgrim in Perthshire

Pilgrim has a 7ft wingspan and was hand-reared in captivity

3 May 2011

Fears are growing for a bald eagle, described as a "big softie", who has been missing from a falconry in Perthshire since Saturday.

Nine-year-old Pilgrim has been sighted by walkers in the Sherriffmuir hills, a few miles from his home at Phoenix Falconry, near Auchterarder.

He was chased from there at the weekend by a pair of wild buzzards.

Staff at the centre have been unable to catch him and said it was now "a race against time" to rescue the eagle.

Pilgrim, who has a 7ft (2.1m) wingspan, was hand-reared in captivity and does not know how to hunt and feed himself in the wild.

It was feared that he had flown hundreds of miles away but several sightings over the weekend suggest he has remained closer to home.

Head falconer Adrian Hallgarth said: "Some walkers spotted him on Sunday on Sheriffmuir, and we had several reliable sightings on Monday evening.

"On each occasion these people were alerted by him being beaten up by buzzards.

"In the air he presents a large target for these aggressive birds, so he'll be driven to ground to keep a low profile and that's making it harder to find him. It is a race against time now."

Mr Hallgarth said he was convinced Pilgrim remained in the area and said he was worried the bird of prey could be mobbed to death by other birds, killed on a road or even shot.

He added: "He can't hunt and my greatest fear is that in desperation he will go for road kill on the nearby A9 and be run over. Or he could be shot by someone trying to protect their sheep.

"It is also possible he could be mobbed to death as buzzards and crows are protecting their nests at this time of year and will see him as a threat."
Tracking equipment

This is the third time Pilgrim has gone missing from the Perthshire falconry.

Tracking equipment used to locate him after previous escapes failed to register anything over the weekend.

The eagle is used to being handled by hundreds of visitors at the falconry, but inexperienced members of the public were warned not to approach him.

Staff at the centre are continuing their search.

Mr Hallgarth added : "I am his 'dad'. If he sees me he will come straight to me. I just hope it is not too late."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-13268112

Bald eagles sighted along Piscataqua

By Charles McMahon
cmcmahon@seacoastonline.com
March 14, 2011 2:00 AM

PORTSMOUTH — Tugboats, oil tankers and scrap ships aren't the only things Port Director Geno Marconi said he's been seeing along the Piscataqua River these days.

With his office window facing the busy waterway that intersects Maine and New Hampshire, Marconi said it's also not rare for him to see a slew of sea gulls and even harbor seals hanging about.

But for the past couple of years, the longtime director of the Port of New Hampshire said he's witnessed a new visitor along the riverfront.

"The last couple of years I've seen a couple American bald eagles flying around out there," he said. "A couple times they've come by the scrap pile. You can't miss 'em — they are a lot bigger than a sea gull."

Marconi said when he recently visited the Portsmouth Fishermen's Pier on Peirce Island, he noticed one of the majestic birds perched on the limb of a giant elm tree.

"It was just sitting in the tree, looking at me," he said.

As a self-professed amateur bird watcher, Marconi said he decided to take some pictures of the bald eagles and since then has noticed them all over the city, including at Prescott Park.

He said he's learned from others that there may in fact be a nesting pair on Clark's Island, which is at the lower end of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, opposite New Castle.

Just last week, Marconi said he saw another bald eagle flying near the Taylor River by the New Hampshire Liquor Store.

It appears that bald eagles aren't exclusive to the waterfront in Portsmouth, either.

Last June, the Portsmouth Herald reported three separate eagle sightings along the Squamscott River.

http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20110314-NEWS-103140327

Where eagles dare to baldly go

Click to enlarge

http://e-edition.metro.co.uk/2010/05/27/ - p12.

Dentist fixes eagle's broken beak

Tom Phillips - 8th February, 2010

An Alaska dentist had to improvise when called upon to mend given a bald eagle's broken beak - which he managed using a temporary crown, sticky poster putty and yellow highlighter.

The bird was found in December with severe damage to its beak, apparently from fishing line that wrapped around it and started cutting into it.

Cindy Palmatier at the Bird Treatment and Learning Center says staff there decided to turn to dentist Kirk Johnson, who thought of patching up the beak with the same material used to make temporary crowns for people, according to KTUU-TV.

The 'crown' is being held on with poster putty, and Johnson colored it in using highlighter to give it a yellow tint.

The bird center says the eagle is doing just fine but won't be able to return to the wild.

http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/812202-dentist-fixes-eagles-broken-beak

Man says two bald eagles attacked his dog

Friday, January 30, 2009

By Francesca Chilargi

GIBRALTAR — A black Labrador retriever named Mojo is a fortunate fellow, according to his owner.

Lester Wood, 55, said two large bald eagles were diving for his 65-pound dog on the coldest day last month in his back yard on Horse Island.

Mojo, who is 2 years old, was in the back yard when Wood stepped out and saw the eagles diving toward him.

That’s when he put his hands up. One bird saw him and made a sharp right turn, almost hitting his truck in his yard, he said.

“I know I was interrupting them from getting the dog,” Wood said.

The other eagle followed the first one and they both got tangled in a tree at the end of his driveway before breaking free, flying over Lake Erie and swooping back to Wood’s yard, he said.

Wood is adamant that the eagles, which once were endangered and are federally protected, were plunging for his dog. Aside from the dog, there was only a tree near the deck, he said.

“They were only eight or nine feet off the ground,” he said. “They didn’t come down to the dog, but they were five to six feet away from the dog. They were coming right for him. He’s lucky I came out there.”

John Hartig, Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge manager, said he hasn’t heard of bald eagles harassing dogs and doesn’t know why that would have happened.

The birds usually keep their distance and hunt for fish, Hartig said.

Wood said the eagles were about 4 feet tall and their wingspan was about 5 feet. They were muscular and as big as a trash can, he said.

Adult male eagles generally weigh about 9 pounds and adult females weigh between 12 and 13 pounds. Adult eagles have a wing-span of up to 7 feet, according to experts.

Immature eagles are brown with white heads and tails. The distinct features of the mature bird develop at 5 years old.

In the wild, bald eagles live between 30 and 35 years. In captivity, they have been known to live up to 50 years.

Wood wants to warn other pet owners and parents to be vigilant when their loved ones are outside.

One of his neighbors won’t let her dog go outside without her because she’s afraid of the eagles possibly attacking the dog, he said.

The cold snap has lured hordes of eagles to the island that otherwise would have few, if any at all. Wood’s wife, Cheryl, 52, and their neighbors said they haven’t seen so many eagles before this winter.

Before, Lester Wood said, he would drive to Estral Beach in Berlin Township to see a nest of eagles. Now, he doesn’t have to because he can see the birds from his window.

Wood said he believes the eagles are “a nuisance bird.”

“I know they were almost extinct and wiped out, but they are making a big comeback,” he said.

Residents along the waterfront usually can see several eagles between 8 a.m. and noon. It’s not every day that most people can see an eagle, Wood said.

With the cold temperatures, Wood said he believes the eagles fly to the island, which is bounded by a bay and Lake Erie, searching for food because the bay doesn’t freeze like creeks and rivers.

For instance, the water under the Wayne County-owned bridge between Trenton and Grosse Ile has been freezing, Wood said. But when the water is open, there are not as many eagles flying together over Horse Island.

He said he knows eagles can attack dogs because one killed a golden retriever belonging to a friend from Alaska.

The friend was walking the dog when the eagle swooped in and struck the dog three times on its back, he said.

The woman kicked the bird off the dog, and it hopped behind her as she carried the dog, he said.

“One eagle actually killed the dog,” Wood said. “I know they will attack things that are bigger than them.”

http://www.thenewsherald.com/articles/2009/01/30/news/doc498354b373e25514619980.txt

(Submitted by Bill Zardus)

Maori legend of man-eating bird is true

Creature that features in New Zealand folklore really existed, scientists say

By Paul Rodgers

Monday, 14 September 2009

A Maori legend about a giant, man-eating bird has been confirmed by scientists. Te Hokioi was a huge black-and-white predator with a red crest and yellow-green tinged wingtips, in an account given to Sir George Gray, an early governor of New Zealand. It was said to be named after its cry and to have "raced the hawk to the heavens". Scientists now think the stories handed down by word of mouth and depicted in rock drawings refer to Haast's eagle, a raptor that became extinct just 500 years ago, shows their study in The Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Haast's eagle (Harpagornis moorei) was discovered in swamp deposits by Sir Julius von Haast in the 1870s. But it was at first thought to be a scavenger because its bill was similar to a vulture's with hoods over its nostrils to stop flesh blocking its air passages as it rooted around inside carcasses.

But a re-examination of skeletons using modern technology, including CAT scans, by researchers at Canterbury Museum in Christchurch and the University of New South Wales in Australia showed it had a strong enough pelvis to support a killing blow as it dived at speeds of up to 80kph.

With a wingspan of up to three metres and weighing 18kg, the female was twice as big as the largest living eagle, the Steller's sea eagle. And the bird's talons were as big as a tiger's claws. "It was certainly capable of swooping down and taking a child," said Paul Scofield, the curator of vertebrate zoology at the Canterbury Museum. "They had the ability to not only strike with their talons but to close the talons and put them through quite solid objects such as a pelvis. It was designed as a killing machine."

Its main prey would have been moa, flightless birds which grew to as much as 250kg and 2.5 metres tall. "In some fossil sites, moa bones have been found with signs of eagle predation," Dr Scofield said.

New Zealand has no native land mammals because it became isolated from other continents in the Cretaceous, more than 65 million years ago. As a result, birds filled niches usually populated by large mammals such as deer and cattle. "Haast's eagle wasn't just the equivalent of a giant predatory bird," said Dr Scofield. "It was the equivalent of a lion." The eagle is thought to have died out after the arrival, 1,000 years ago, of humans, who exterminated the giant moa. The latest study shows it was a recent immigrant to the islands, related to the little eagle (Aquila morphnoides) an Australian bird weighing less than 1kg.

Remains of Haast's eagles are rare because there never were many. They lived only on New Zealand's South Island, with probably not more than 1,000 breeding pairs at any one time.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/maori-legend-of-maneating-bird-is-true-1786867.html

See also: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10597177

Extinct New Zealand eagle may have eaten humans

AP NEWS 2009-09-12 14:52

BANGKOK (AP) — Sophisticated computer scans of fossils have helped solve a mystery over the nature of a giant, ancient raptor known as the Haast's eagle which became extinct about 500 years ago, researchers said Friday.

The researchers say they have determined that the eagle — which lived in the mountains of New Zealand and weighed about 40 pounds (18 kilograms) — was a predator and not a mere scavenger as many thought.

Much larger than modern eagles, Haast's eagle would have swooped to prey on flightless birds — and possibly even the rare unlucky human.

Ken Ashwell of the University of New South Wales in Australia and Paul Scofield of the Canterbury Museum in New Zealand wrote their conclusions in the peer-reviewed Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Using computed axial tomography, or CAT, the researchers scanned several skulls, a pelvis and a beak in an effort to reconstruct the size of the bird's brain, eyes, ears and spinal cord.

They compared their data on the Haast's eagle to characteristics of modern predator birds and scavenger birds to determine that the bird was a fearsome predator that ate the flightless moa birds and even humans.

The researchers also determined the eagle quickly evolved from a much smaller ancestor, with the body growing much more quickly than the brain. They believe its body grew 10 times bigger during the early to middle Pleistocene period, 700,000 to 1.8 million years ago.

"This work is a great example of how rapidly evolving medical techniques and equipment can be used to solve ancient medical mysteries," Ashwell said.

Because fossils are so fragile and most of the species were never seen by humans, CAT scans allow researchers to closely examine body parts of the long-extinct animals to learn about their behavior, Scofield said.

"The fossils are very valuable and you can't just cut into the skull to look at the brain," he said. "So by using nondestructive techniques, you can get a much better idea of the neurobiology of these animals."

Scientists believe the Haast's eagle became extinct about 500 years ago, most likely due to habitat destruction and the extinction of its prey species at the hands of early Polynesian settlers. Before the humans colonized New Zealand about 750 years ago, the largest inhabitants were birds like the Haast's eagle and the moa.

Scofield said the findings are similar to what he found in Maori folk tales. "The science supports Maori mythology of the legendary pouakai or hokioi, a huge bird that could swoop down on people in the mountains and was capable of killing a small child," he said.

New Zealand paleontologist Trevor Worthy said the study did a good job of proving the eagle was a killer.

"They provide a convincing case that the body of this eagle has rapidly enlarged, presumably adapting to the very much larger prey it had access to in New Zealand, but that the brain size had lagged behind this increase," he said in an e-mail interview. "Convincing data shows beyond doubt that this bird was an active predator, no mere scavenger. It is a nice use of modern technology and the same old bones as yesteryear to advance knowledge."

Jamie R. Wood, a researcher from New Zealand who has done extensive research on the moa, said the analysis strengthens the case that the eagle evolved quickly from a much smaller ancestor, "in what must be one of the most dramatic examples anywhere of how rapidly evolution can occur on islands." (By MICHAEL CASEY/AP Environmental Writer)

http://www.mysinchew.com/node/29206

Eagle smashes car windshield with fish

August 12, 2009

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

MARBLEHEAD, Ohio - A woman in Ohio is telling a fish story about one that got away - from a bird, and damaged her car.

Authorities in northwest Ohio say the fish - a Lake Erie freshwater drum, known as a sheepshead - smashed a car windshield Tuesday when an eagle dropped its catch from a height of about 40 feet (12 metres), the Sandusky Register reported.

Leighann Niles says the impact felt like a brick hitting her Toyota's windshield. The woman from the Cleveland suburb of South Euclid was vacationing along the lake in Marblehead.

Niles says she had thought herself lucky to escape damage in another animal encounter shortly before the fishy one. She says a truck hit a small bird, which struck her back passenger door and startled her 5-year-old daughter.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2009/08/12/10438706-ap.html

Police probe over poisoned eagle

Police have confirmed that a Golden Eagle found dead in Argyll had been poisoned with insecticide.

The bird of prey was found by walkers on the slopes of Beinn Udlaidh in the Glen Orchy area on 7 June. They alerted the RSPB which then called in police.

A major search of the area - including several buildings - was made 10 days later by officers from the wildlife crime unit and government scientists.

Police have said they are following a positive line of inquiry.

The dead eagle was examined by biologists and chemists from the Scottish Government's Science and Advice for Scottish Agriculture. They concluded that the bird had died from poisoning caused by toxic insecticide.

The RSPB alerted Strathclyde Police and a major search of Beinn Udlaidh and the surrounding area was undertaken on 17 June.

The operation, which covered premises in the Glen Orchy and Bridge of Orchy areas, involved officers from the Oban Community Policing Team along with specialist wildlife officers from Strathclyde, Lothian and Borders and Central Scotland Police.

The National Wildlife Crime Unit was also involved, assisted by the RSPB, the Scottish SPCA and pesticide experts from the Scottish Government.

Con Stevie McAleer, wildlife crime officer for North Argyll, who co-ordinated the operation, said: "I would urge any members of the public who may come across a dead bird or carcass to alert the police to the discovery.

'Shocked and saddened'
"I would advise people not to touch the bird or the surrounding area. If possible, and if safe to do so, branches or grass should be thrown over the carcass to avoid it being seen and eaten by other animals or birds."

Bob Elliot, head of investigations with RSPB Scotland said: "As ever, we're shocked and saddened that there are still people out there placing poisoned baits in the countryside, which often result in the deaths of some of our magnificent birds of prey.

"This area doesn't have a recent track record of wildlife crime, which is even more worrying in a way.

"It's likely that this bird was part of a breeding pair in Argyll, so the crime may have affected the chances of survival of young birds in the nest too."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8108827.stm