it's tough to be a young animal. you make a lot of mistakes learning your way around hairless apes, and they're often fatal.

Especially hairless apes that have figured out how to fly at 600 MPH!

Bald eagles are everywhere these days. We got 'em at Green Lake. If you go up to one of the rivers, like the Skagit or the Stillaguamish, during a salmon run you you will see hundreds of them. Mmm, carcasses.

Rest in peace, beautiful bird. I'm glad you got to soar majestically in your final moments, but I'm sad you're gone.

That Green Lake eagle is a standoffish snoot.

My Mom sent me a photo of a flock of thirteen bald eagles in her driveway this winter. She took the photo from about ten feet away through the window. Pretty impressive sight.

Let put an sheepdog r out there to chase away the eagles .... ooops there goes the sheepdog.

Curious, which animal population will plummet now that the eagle population is soaring? Crows? Candian Geese?

When I was younger, I was an aircraft mechanic for a while.

Bird strikes are not as uncommon as you might think. I have personally helped repair the noses of several planes that struck birds. Also the leading edges of wings, engine nacelles, landing gear...

A small bird leaves nothing but a smear of blood and a few feathers stuck in the goo. A larger bird, like an eagle or a pelican, has enough mass to do more damage. The nose of almost all commercial aircraft is actually made of honeycombed fiberglass. A large bird will just bash right through it if struck at cruising speed. Often causes damage to the radar equipment inside the dome too. The plane is in no danger of crashing. The dented fiberglass dome just causes more drag. The pressure bulkhead behind it is much sturdier, and no bird strike could possibly punch through that.

It doesn't happen every day, but I recall repairing 3 domes over about a 4 or 5 year period.

Well, yeah, it was an immature thing to do.

Kids these days, I tell ya.

It punched through the fiberglass covering for the weather radar. Lucky for the crew it wasn't a couple of feet higher.

On a side note, I've been enjoying the two ospreys over Green Lake these last few weeks. They don't just float around aloofly, they give you some action, plummeting into the water on a regular basis.

Surprised I'm the first to say, but immature bald eagles don't have the white head. They're brown all over until they reach adulthood.