Eagle War

Aerial Combat over Lake Tapps, WAR between two Eagles

A three-way life & death struggle between two mature Bald Eagles fighting over one very frightened duck! The Eagles fought each other for several minutes while trying to get that duck! It was like WWIII in the air!


The fellow sitting on the tailgate of his pickup truck never realized the show he was missing.



The little duck watches as the Eagle speeds straight at him at about 40 mph.



With perfect timing, the duck always dove and escaped with as mighty splash! Then he'd pop to the surface as soon as he Eagle flew past. This was repeated over and over for several minutes.



A second Eagle joins the attack!The duck kept diving "just in time", so the Eagles began to dive into the water after him!



After several minutes the Eagles got frustrated and began to attack each other. They soon began to dive vertically, level out, and attack head-on in a good old-fashioned game of high-speed "Chicken". Sometimes they banked away from each other at the last possible second. Other times they'd climb vertically and tear into each other while falling back toward the water. (The duck catches his breath at the right side of this picture.)



A terrible miscalculation! Head-on collision between two Bald Eagles.



One Eagle stayed aloft and flew away, but the other lies motionless in a crumpled heap. The lucky duck survived to live another day.



It's sad to watch an Eagle drown. He wiggled, flapped and struggled mostly underwater. He finally got his head above water and with great difficulty managed to get airborne.



The bedraggled Eagle lit atop a nearby fir tree. He had a six-foot wingspread and looked mighty angry.

He flew away.