Bridgton, Maine — At around 6 in the morning of July 29, 2019, a man named Nat Woodruff found a dead bald eagle found floating face-down on the Highland Lake. Also found dead near the eagle was a loon chick. The man left the dead bird appropriately while he called the Warden Service. After a few moments, Maine Game Warden Neal Wykes arrived and brought the dead eagle to the Norway Veterinary Hospital for a radiograph to determine if the bird was shot.
No metal showed up on the image, but during the external exam a puncture wound on the eagle’s chest was discovered.
What caused the puncture wound? It was stated that it could be from the beak of an adult loon.
A loon’s best weapon is its dagger-like bill, and it will often attack adversary loons by coming up from beneath the water’s surface with its bill straight towards the other loon’s sternum, or chest. Many adult loons have several healed-over sternal punctures from fights like these.
This could mean that an adult loon (probably the chick’s parent) could have gone in to rescue the chick from the talons of the eagle. Unfortunately, the chick did not survive the ordeal.
The reason this is so interesting to loon researchers is that such a case has not been documented before. We know conflicts between bald eagles and loons have soared in recent years as a result of the recovery of our eagle population. We are seeing more and more eagle predation on loon chicks and even adult loons. Who would think a loon would stand a chance against such a powerful predator?
Sure enough, the pathologist who examined the eagle and loon chick in the lab, called me shortly afterward to tell me it indeed looked as though the loon was the culprit in this eagle’s death. The size of the puncture wound was similar to the size of a loon’s bill, and it extended straight to the heart which likely led to a quick death. Not only that, but the loon chick had puncture marks consistent with the spacing of eagle talons.
A parent’s instinct, indeed.
Via Live Science
(Image Credit: Nat Woodruff)