Eagle Family Observations at Alewife's Little Pond

All photos by Stephanie Liu

From the Photographer:

Very early this morning, I saw something in the middle of Little Pond. I couldn’t tell what it was until I took a closer look with my binoculars. It was an eagle eating fish and I think the eagle broke the ice to get the fis , so there was a line of golden splashes as it was during golden hours shortly after sunrise. It was not easy to get the correct camera settings as the sun and its reflection was very brilliant, but the rest of the pond was still quite dark.

There were two bald eagles, one adult and a huge juvenile eagle. I think they are father and daughter as female bald eagles are about 25% larger. I’ve seen the juvenile follows the adult eagle perching on the same tree a few times with the juvenile on a lower branch. When the adult flew away, the juvenile would follow suit. That made it difficult to capture both eagles taking off because my camera would follow the adult eagle flying across the pond until it disappears and when I move my camera back to the tree, the juvenile would be gone.

The juvenile eagle tried to take the fish for herself a few times and from some photos, the adult eagle didn’t seem to know what to do. In the end, the adult took the leftover fish to the other side to consume. I remember I learned from National Geographic that the bald eagles work so hard, risking their lives to protect and feed their young, but once they learn how to hun ; they stop sharing food and actually fight them away so that they learn to take care of themselves.

Bald eagles perched in a tree above Little Pond.

A bald eagle flying over the frozen surface of Little Pond