These bald eagles couldn’t set aside their differences in celebration of America 250, eh?
It’s rare to see a baldie pick a fight, especially with a bird of the same feather. When it comes to hunting, they ideally like to catch their victims by surprise, often using their great vision (hence the phrases “eagle-eyed”) to spot prey from afar and swoop down to grab them before they even know what hits them. When baldies aren’t facing off against one another like in this video, they are usually trying to pick on things a little bit smaller than their size.
Bald eagles weigh anywhere between six and fifteen pounds (with females actually weighing more than males) and have a wingspan range of six to eight feet. Fish are one of their most common meals, accounting for over 70% of their diet, but they also will eat small mammals, waterfowl, reptiles and amphibians, and scavenge for their fair share of carrion. Occasionally, you’ll even see videos of bald eagles trying to scoop up yappy dogs or gruesomely stealing away someone’s house cat. The predatory birds tend to avoid tussles, but sometimes fights are unavoidable.
This one that was videoed in Ferrisburgh, Vermont was apparently triggered by some sort of territorial or food dispute. The person who captured it on camera (Julie Symula) came up on the two patriotic birds having a ground war right on the side of the road… and the battle likely started up in the air.
Most of the time, the bald eagles clash with one another to establish dominance. They’ll use their talons to grapple and scratch the other large bird in mid air, and when the battle between two eagles gets to ground level like this one, they’re both just trying to outlast each other.
Bald eagles usually don’t suffer any serious injuries when they fight like this… but this situation might be the exception. Neither bird in the clip below looks comfortable, and one had the other really pinned down to the asphalt. Though it wasn’t a pretty scuffle, they were both able to fly off towards the end of the video (once they realized a person had walked up next to them).
These bald eagle fights are commonly entered into only to make the other eagle retreat, or at the very least intimidate their opponent so they “don’t come around these parts” anymore. These altercations almost never end in the death of one of the birds, but in rare cases, neither bald eagle will back down and the duel only ends in death. There’s a chance this was the only time these two national birds went talon-to-talon with one another.
There’s also a chance that they flew off to resume the fight elsewhere.
Regardless of how it ultimately ended up, it’s a rare video that showcases the power and viciousness that a bald eagle can possess. You won’t see them fighting all that often, and it’s definitely rare to catch baldie-on-baldie crime like this on video. Thankfully, Julie Symula was there and got her camera rolling at just the right time to get this footage below for the rest of us to take in:
“Two adult eagles were captured on video in a tussle at Button Bay in Ferrisburgh by WCAX News viewer Julie Symula.”
