Eagles, eagles everywhere - but who are they?

Eagles have been a love of my life from the time I arrived in Oregon on my Harley in 1951-where I discovered them being killed by 1080 poison put out by government trappers killing coyotes. However, eagles are still with us today, thanks to the supreme efforts of Frank Isaacs of the Oregon Eagle Foundation (OEF), with whom my wife, Sue, and I are helping to conduct a statewide survey of golden eagles in conjunction with other agencies.

Thanks to Isaacs and his spectacular team of volunteers, the bald eagle of the Pacific Northwest was saved from extinction. On any given day, in any kind of weather, it is not uncommon to spot one or two soaring about the trees, meadows, forests, cities and downtown airways today. The problem is, there seems to be no end to the plumage diversity in bald eagles.

Like all birders who have a special bird they enjoy and see all the time in their subconscious, I see the shape and movement of eagles automatically; while driving down the road, canoeing on a lake or hiking - if the shape and movements of eagles pop up I usually spot it.

But at times what or who that eagle is drives me nuts!

Years ago, Sue and I were bouncing down one of those so-called "roads" the BLM has cut through the sagebrush and rocks out between Riley and Burns - searching for a rumored golden eagle nest site - when suddenly we came upon a large, dark eagle perched on a fence post.

"Hey!" I almost shouted, coming to a stop. "There's an adult golden."

Sue had her binocs on it as I was reaching for mine, and she said, slowly... "I... don't... think... so..." So, I took another look through my binocs, calling out what I was looking at.

"It's big enough for a golden, all dark, gold on the back of the head... whoops no feathers down to the feet, and..." Then Sue interrupted, saying, "Yeah, no feathers to the feet like a golden...and look at the size of that beak...it's way too big for a golden, and I'm not sure about those imagined golden feathers on the back of its head either..."

Slowly - right before our eyes - my adult golden eagle transformed into a juvenile bald eagle. That wasn't the first time.

Right then and there we decided to try and get a good look at every image we could find of golden and bald eagles pictured in as many ages in as many different plumages as possible. We enjoyed books and scientific papers with image after image of both species of eagles in several stages of aging, especially those by the grand master of picturing birds, Roger Tory Peterson. I thought I had the bald eagle down pat - with their wide diversity of plumage at different ages - until this past Christmas Bird Count (CBC).

A large bird was feasting on a road-killed deer along with five ravens in my count area on Bear Creek Road in southeast Bend and it looked like an osprey. As I slowed down and rolled closer to the hoard they all spooked and flew off, and I noted the "osprey" had a whitish band in the center of its tail.

"What in the heck is that?" I said to myself, as they flew a short way off and alighted in a juniper back down the road. The hazing of the larger bird kept up so I drove on up the road, found a place to turn around and slowly eased my old 4Runner off the road right across from all the activity where I started shooting photos with my old Canon.

You can see in the above photos of that bird it has a very definite bald eagle-shaped beak, but not dark, nor yellow. There are also white feathers mixed in with gray and dark on the head. That, plus the bi-colored beak and multicolored head and body feathers, is indicative of a juvenile baldy who will be in adult plumage next summer.

And that, Dear Ones, is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the diversity of plumage in eagles. So, take a look at those drawings by the old master birder Peterson. He was the best at identifying and teaching about birds of North America.

Google him and you will find his field guides for sale from $3.79 for an individual guide to $746 for a complete set. He was the best at illustrating birds, but when it comes to eagles, the birds themselves seem to keep coming up with new ways to make life tough for birders, especially how they wear their plumage.

So, if you come upon a raptor that gives you a headache to ID, don't be bashful; send it to my email: [email protected] and we'll see what we can come up with. Please be sure to include location, date, and weather data.