ML645535706

Observation details

An adult had caught a bird and was drowning it in the lake, north of NOAA, when I first noticed. For several minutes, the eagle was making swimming motions while bobbing up and down. Once it must have lost its grip as it turned around, reached out and pushed the bird back down. Eventually, it launched itself into the air, made a wide circle to expel as much water as it could, then came back and picked up the hapless bird without a hitch and flew over to the boat docks south of Matthews Beach, where it began plucking feathers and started eating what appeared to be a Western Grebe.