I go birding in a spot near Astoria, Oregon and have counted over 70 individual bald eagles from one spot, some trees will have 20 alone perched in them.

According to national eagle center, "The average eagle needs between ½ and 1 pound of food each day.". So those animals are harvesting 35-70lb of food (other animals) per day. That's incredible to me! There must be so much life in that area.

https://www.nationaleaglecenter.org/eagle-diet-feeding/

> So those animals are harvesting 35-70lb of food (other animals) per day. That's incredible to me! There must be so much life in that area.

I mean, you could almost certainly harvest more than 70 pounds of ants a day without making a dent in the ant population. Eagles can't eat ants, but "pounds of life" doesn't mean much.

For sure, you're right, I just find it fascinating how much life is out there. If I try visualizing 70lb of small creatures for eagles to eat, it suddenly seems kind of crazy to think of all those creatures and so much life cycling in such a small area where these things hunt. The earth is just covered in life.

A lot of farmers dump oyster shells on their fields. This attracts quite a bit of gulls and seems related but I am not really sure what the food sources there are.

Also this is a seasonal occurrence.

Grew up in Astoria (70’s - mid 80’s) and never saw that many at once. Would be interested to know where your spot is :). Although I’ve never seen them I’ve seen pictures of Snowy Owls at the South Jetty. https://www.jack-n-jill.net/blog/2012/12/south-jetty-snowy-o...

wireless road: https://ebird.org/hotspot/L1296120?yr=cur&m=&rank=mrec

This hotspot is relatively new so the larger lists aren't associated to it.

hate to get this discussion back on topic, but the headline for this article is "population soars": you're talking about 40 to 50 years ago!

I was going to say a similar thing. On one drive from SF to Spokane I was driving through central Oregon in the winter. There must have been a bald eagle on every other fence post for 10 miles at one point. counted over 100 birds of prey, most of them bald eagles.

so much freedom!

I've seen the same in driving up to Vancouver from YVR. Freedom spills over the border!

If you pop down to the Tswassen ferry from vanouver you might get to see something along the lines of this too: https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/vancouver-news/worlds-lar...

should have gone with the turkey

allow the pigeon to disagree

Bald Eagles don't eat pigeon. Are you thinking of the Peregrine Falcon? Or am I misunderstanding your reference?

Bald eagles do have specific prey like fish that they prefer however they will absolutely eat anything smaller than them that isn't a significant threat if hungry and it's opportune. I'm not sure where you would get the idea that they won't pigeons (and road kill as well)

I don’t think they’re adapted like Peregrines for catching agile birds on the wing. I’m not arguing that no bald eagle has ever scavenged a pigeon before.

Actually, yes.

helllll yeah brother

I saw two of them circling my neighborhood in Minneapolis last week. Gigantic, gorgeous wingspans. Few of my neighbors saw me outside looking up in the sky and came out to see what was going on and stood and watched for a bit too.

It's always fun to see them on the drive up north, too. Such cool looking birds.

Hello, neighbor :)

I’m a couple of hours east of you, but it’s rare to see other Arkansans on HN.

Hi, thanks. Glad to see you on here as well. I grew up a couple hours east of where I am now. Berryville.

There are bald eagles around here?! Very cool, will have to keep an eye out (howdy from Cave Springs).