Bald Eagles At Greenways Conservation Land

 

A few weeks ago, I tried a new hiking spot. Greenways Conservation Land. Its a small forest, with areas of old field habitat, along the Sudbury River, managed by Sudbury Valley Trustees. During my hike, I remember seeing a bald eagle flap over a field, going upstream. On my last day of February break, I came back, hoping to see the eagle again, and get photos this time. The first thing I saw was an eastern bluebird perched on it's nesting box...

I then worked my way down to a low area, that was dominated by silver maples, and was very swampy, but frozen over, so i could walk on the ice. I walked out to the tip of the swamp, and then started walking back. I noticed something bright red sticking out against the white snow...

...The half eaten carcass of a european carp. European carp were introduced about 100 years ago to the United States as a food source, and used to stock ponds. Since then they have become a very destructive invasive species, growing to huge sizes and outcompeting native fish. The fish was about 2 feet long, and looked like it was a fresh kill. I could immediately tell the species by it's weird face...

There were no tracks of anything except small songbirds around the carp, so I figured it must have been killed by one of the eagles. I looked around and did not see any eagles perched along the river. I decided to run back to the car and grab my trail camera, to leave it for a few days, and catch the killer. When i got back to the carp, I started to set up the camera, but it was not working. The SD card would not fit it's slot...

.... Just then something came flapping downstream, towards me. A bald eagle! I quickly took the SD card from the trail camera, and put it in my Canon. I watched the eagle land in a maple along the other side of the river. It perched there for a bit...

...And then I saw another eagle coming. The first eagle's mate. It passed by, flying upstream, which definately caught the perched eagle's attention. I could not get a sharp photo of the flying eagle...

But I was semi-prepared to take photos when the perched eagle launched itself off it's perch, following its mate upstream, where i'm guessing they have a nest.