Eagles and magpies

There is a large sea eagle that lives, or at least hunts, near our apartment.  Like all such birds, it is beautiful and majestic and a symbol of power.  Still, it’s relations with other birds is a strong parable for ‘bigger isn’t always better’.  In the following photos, you can see a magpie torment and chase away the much larger eagle.

Oh, click to embiggen any of these photos.  The quality isn’t fantastic; sorry ’bout that.

First, we see two eagles sitting on a light-tower and a nest at the bottom left of the tower cage.  In Canada, osprey make similar nests and they are known as ‘sea-eagles’ so it must be the eagle’s nest.  Okay, that’s terrible logic and I don’t know what kind of nest magpie make, either. August is late in the season so I suspect it is an empty nest, whoever the original inhabitants were. Oh, apparently falcon nests look like this.

Anyway, along come the magpies.

And soon, the eagles are off.

It’s a little amusing seeing crows do this, then seeing sparrows chase away the crows in the exact same fashion.

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Finally, a just barely pre-typhoon picture.