Golden eagle vs. deer
By Earleen Hinton - General Manager
A sequence of photographs taken recently at Nachusa Grasslands has area birders buzzing.
Eric Walters, a Zion resident and frequent visitor to the 2,800-acre preserve located southeast of Oregon, couldn’t believe his eyes Feb. 13 when he observed a genuine moment from nature unfold right in front of his camera lens.
It all started around 11:20 a.m. when Walters spotted a very large bird circling high above the prairie, just off of Lowden Road.
At first, the experienced bird watcher was thinking bald eagle, but when a red-tailed hawk started pestering the eagle, his identification moved on to golden eagle— a rare visitor to the Illinois prairie.
When the bird moved out of his view, Walters jumped in his car and drove around the preserve to relocate the large raptor. He spotted it again high above an open cornfield adjacent to the preserve’s Carpenter Prairie.
But what happened next is what all the buzz is all about.
He watched the golden eagle—with a wingspan of nearly 7 feet—circle in the sky. As Walters positioned himself for more photos he noticed a sudden change in the bird’s behavior.
“I saw this deer running and I thought ‘no way is this eagle going after a deer’”, but the golden was actually going for it,” Walters said. “The deer was going full speed and the golden was going after it!”
Walters, with his camera lens resting on the hood of his car, snapped off a series of photos documenting the eagle’s run at the now terrified deer.
He watched and shot frame-by-frame as the eagle swooped down at the deer as she bolted across the open field. Walters said the eagle actually raked its large talons on the doe’s backside in an effort to bring her down.
“Despite deer having great open field speed, it was clear this one was quickly losing ground to the diving eagle,” Walters later wrote in a web posting. “I could hardly believe my eyes, was this golden eagle going for a kill of an animal twice its size?”
Walters continued to watch as the deer employed a serious of quick turns that eventually caused the eagle to pull up from the chase.
“There are documented cases of goldens taking down larger prey. This deer was going full speed,” he said. “I was just lucky enough to be there when it happened.”
The deer ran to cover and the eagle began circling high in the sky.
Walters thinks the golden eagle he saw and photographed that Saturday was first spotted by other Grassland visitors in mid-December.
“Someone saw a golden during the Christmas bird count, but we thought it was just passing through,” he said. “Now, I think it may be the same golden.”
Walters said golden eagles can pass through Illinois during winter migration which runs through early March.
“There’s still time to maybe catch a glimpse of it. It may still be at Nachusa,” said Walters.
A detailed account of Walter’s sighting and his photographs appear at the Illinois Birders’ Forum, http://www.ilbirds.com/index.php?topic=32809.0.
For more information about the Nachusa Grasslands call 815-456-2340 or www.nachusagrasslands.org.
Photos appear in the March 4 issue of the Oregon Republican Reporter, Tri-County Press, Mt. Morris Times, and Forreston Journal.
