He heard the mother bald eagle’s cry before she was even seen. Staked out at a nest in Santa Clara County, tripod prepped, camera ready to shoot, Dr. Doug Gillard took his best guess where she might appear. He pointed his camera straight up and blindly fired away at 80 frames per second. It was a direct hit.
Dr. Gillard, 63, had been scoping the nest since January, intent on capturing the entire eagle mating cycle as it unfolded. The eaglet came and was getting bigger—hearing its mother’s call that day, May 28, meant one thing. “Dinner,” Dr. Gillard told The Epoch Times.
The viewfinder on his camera showed what looked like a duckling in her powerful clutches. Then recognition dawned. “Oh my god, it’s a little red-tailed hawk,” he said to himself. “What a terrible thing!” Dr. Gillard guessed the bald eagle had raided a red-tailed’s nest and “kidnapped” a hawklet, or eyas, to feed its eaglet.
And it was alive!
“Maybe it’s teaching its eaglet that food doesn’t just show up in the nest dead,” Dr. Gillard, a professor of anatomy from Gilroy, California, said. “And that you actually have to kill it.”
He knows that bald eagles and red-tailed hawks are “mortal enemies” and are often seen dueling in the sky. He thought it sad that the hawklet, then guessed to be 10 weeks old, would be eaten, but such is life.
Yet he never expected what happened next.
The following week, he saw “a little white cotton ball head” pop up from the nest and was shocked. Somehow the eyas had survived! It hadn’t been eaten. Even stranger, a few days later a second white cotton ball head popped up. “She stole another one!” Dr. Gillard thought, amazed. Two eyas somehow joined the bald eagle family and weren’t killed.
Drawn in, Dr. Gillard continued following the eyasses’ progress, and observed that they “were not being treated the same” as the eaglet. Particularly, the little red-tailed hawk, dubbed Tuffy, who was having trouble learning to fly, was getting “a rough life,” Dr. Gillard said, and had “an abusive mama.”
Dr. Gillard watched and worried as she swooped down from 30 feet (approx. 9 meters) and blew Tuffy out of the nest. Tuffy scampered through the air, hit a tree, and tried to return only to find her blocking the nest. Another time she was observed feeding him, but appeared to tire of it and bit his head lightly, sending Tuffy cowering. The eyas has received wing beatings and sometimes gone hungry.
Dr. Gillard posited a theory about the mother eagle’s behavior. “She’s not trying to kill him,” he said, adding what she really means is, “You need to fly like your adopted sister.” Tough love.
The other eyas, dubbed Lola, fledged on June 13. Dr. Gillard captured pictures of the mom and Tuffy gazing skyward from the nest, watching her catch high thermals.
The mixed-species raptor saga continues. Tuffy apparently did fledge on July 1, though not easily. Dr. Gillard spied him flying about 250 meters (820 feet) off into the woods as mom, dad, and Lola hung out at home. Tuffy must learn to hunt and still depends on the eagles for food. Though tolerated at home, he is not welcomed. Tuffy got his name because he is a survivor, Dr. Gillard said. Time will tell whether he lives up to it.
