Bandit

This is "Bandit;" a young eagle almost entirely into his/her adult plumage, meaning that he/she was at least a couple of years old. I love how eagles look so moth-eaten and mottled when they're transitioning from juvenile to adult plumage.  They often get this Zorro style stripe-over-the-eye that gives them an air of intensity and ferocity that goes away once they acquire the complete white head plumage of an adult.  

Eagles are one of my favorite subjects to photograph...partly because I have an unreasonable love for these giant fish hawks, and partly because they, like other raptors, tend to find a perch and sit on it for a long time, and they don't spook easily.  So, unlike the little songbirds that are almost impossible to get to sit still long enough to get pictures, eagles are perfect posers.

In this picture, however, "Bandit" wasn't posing.  He was divebombing an unfortunate duck who had made the mistake of separating itself from the rest of the flock.  I thought the two of them were indulging in a form of practice hunter/prey game.  Bandit would swoop down at the duck, the duck would dive under the water, and Bandit would pull up, turn, and dive again, and the duck would submerge...again and again and again.  I've since learned that this is an actual hunting tactic of eagles...they harass a prey bird until it is exhausted, then they dive in for the kill. 

I don't know...seemed like an awful lot of work.  And, to my knowledge, Bandit never did actually get this particular duck.