With all the rain we have been having lately, I took advantage of a break in the weather to return to the Harrison River. It was a good move as water levels have dropped and the number of eagles present was astounding!
From the moment I arrived, until the time I left, there were eagles everywhere, with the occasional eagle gliding right over me.
The river was full of spawning salmon, swimming and jumping, with many more dead salmon on the banks.
At one point in the woods, I looked up to see a dead salmon stuck in branches above me. Clearly, it had been dropped by an eagle!
On other trips, the eagles were aggressive to each other. Yesterday, when one eagle approached another, generally the standing eagle would yield its position to the new arrival. I suspect they were all very well fed, and had little desire to fight, other than to offer token resistance.
The river also had lots of ducks including goldeneye, hooded and common mergansers, mallards and American wigeon.
Just as I was preparing to go, four trumpeter swans landed in the water beside me. (There were hundreds further out in the water and the entire time I was there, I was “serenaded” by the whistling of eagles and the trumpeting of swans. What a day!
