Eagle Movies - Jan. 18, 2009

These movies were taken in Homer at the site where the Eagle lady fed the eagles.

Eagle "chattering" after he landed

Man feeding the eagles

Eagles coming in to be fed and fighting over food

Eagles gliding in the wind

Eagles taking a bath

Eagles in Homer - Jan. 18, 2009

There is a lady who has fed the eagles in Homer for many years. It is quite a sight to see hundreds of eagles in one spot. She died in January. Here is a link to a story about her, and also another link about the town continuing to feed the eagles.

http://www.adn.com/front/story/654023.html

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/ap_alaska/story/665844.html

Doug and I went to Homer the week after she died because no decision about continuing to feed the eagles had been made by the city council yet. We were afraid that we would not get another chance to see the eagles. The weather was exceptional. All the snow was melted and the roads were fine. We did stop at a viewpoint on the way to Homer. We were able to see three of the volcanoes across Cook Inlet. Thank goodness Mt. Redoubt wasn't acting up that weekend, or we might not have gone.

I hope you enjoy the pictures. I took hundreds and narrowed them down to these "few" to post. Most of these were taken while we were sitting in our car, surrounded by the eagles. They literally flew right over our heads and in front of our car. I have added a few additional notes within the pictures. You can read them as you scroll down.

This one is sitting on a sign right in front of our car.
The white car hood you see in the bottom of the picture is our car.

The eagles "chattered" for 15-20 seconds whenever they landed.

This picture is kind of fuzzy, but it is the only one I got of the guy who was throwing food to the eagles. He has a dark gray shirt and a pinkish hat. The other people behind him are photographers with super cameras.
Doug and I were just using our little digital cameras, but we got some great pictures---and memories!!!

The brown/tan ones are young eagles.

They do not get their white head until they are a couple of years old.

Eagles taking a bath
If it wasn't for the fact that the wind was blowing and moving the water, this would have been a great shot of the eagles and their reflections in the water. We sat right beside these guys for 5 minutes and they weren't the least bit concerned that we were there.

About an hour after they were done feeding, most of the eagles flew off and we walked along the beach. These are pictures that we got of the eagles that were left. As they flew over the condos, they just floated sideways in the wind, without even flapping their wings.

You can see the kelp and debris to know how high the tide was.
Note the mountain and glacier across the bay behind the eagle.

These are the boats in the Homer harbor and it is not even summertime! A good number of the boats were not even in the water at this time.