Bald Eagle

[Mike125]

Today was a great soaring day here in the mid-Atlantic region with
bases 6000' AGL and cu everywhere. All types of birds were making use
of the abundant lift with gulls, swifts, swallows and red tail hawks
making their presence known. A fellow club member was telling some of
my relative/passengers that we get eagles, too. While osprey are quite
common, I've never seen an eagle while flying at my home airport
(Southern NJ). Well, while 2000' AGL I spotted what looked like a
large hawk crossing in front of me at my altitude. I turned and caught
up to him and, sure enough it was a mature Bald Eagle. The topper was
that he had a good size fish in his talons. I don't know where he was
going but the nearest likely fishing hole was about five miles behind
him. While not really rare around here, Bald Eagles are spread pretty
thin. It was a great treat and my sister in the front seat was equally
impressed, especially with the size of him. You just can't beat this
sport of ours!

[Tony Verhulst]

Mike125 wrote:
> Today was a great soaring day here in the mid-Atlantic region with
> bases 6000' AGL and cu everywhere. All types of birds were making use
> of the abundant lift with gulls, swifts, swallows and red tail hawks
> making their presence known. .........

I just posted the following go my clubs' (Greater Boston Soaring Club)
email list:

I soared with a red tailed hawk today. For a New England glider pilot,
this is not a particularly unusual experience. Though not common, it
happens frequently enough so that it typically doesn’t warrant a comment
amongst ones peers once back on the ground. For me, such encounters are
usually brief because the avian party soon decides that enough is enough
and heads in the opposite direction. One or two turns in the thermal and
they’re gone. Today was different – this one stayed.

It was directly over downtown Worcester. We joined the thermal at the
same time at about 4500 feet. Every glider pilot I know believes that
hawks are this high for only one reason – they’re here for the same
reason that we are – they’re having a blast. Even if you could spot a
rabbit this high up, by the time you dive down to ground level – it
would be gone. They’re this high for the fun of it – of this I have no
doubt.

Since we were near cloud base, neither of us was climbing fast. We were
both circling to the right and when I tightened the turn to stay in the
stronger lift, he would maneuver to maintain position directly opposite
of me, when he changed his turn, I did the same. When I was climbing
faster than he was, he would hug my position a little closer, when he
was climbing faster, I would move closer to him. In other words, he was
doing exactly what you’d expect of an experienced human glider pilot. We
were talking to each other.

Only once did we get our signals crossed and we got uncomfortably close
to each other. He came at me from the left and got within a wingspan (my
wing span J) and all of a sudden his brakes came out – his feet extended
way down into the full drag position, the wings changed shape and he
appeared to screech to a halt in mid air. This too was unusual.
Typically, when a hawk finds a glider directly in his path, the wings
tuck and he goes into a steep dives. This guy maintained altitude, and
afterward, resumed our normal circling.

Eventually, we went our separate ways but the encounter must have lasted
close to 10 minutes. It was magic.

Tony
http://home.comcast.net/~verhulst/SOARING

>You just can't beat this sport of ours!

Yeah!