IL: The story behind the man who got the photos of Golden Eagle taking a deer

[Donna]

(POSTED: 3/4/10) A 46-year-old bird enthusiast from Zion visited the Nachusa Grasslands a few weeks back with one main goal: catch a glimpse of a rare prairie falcon that had been spotted in the Downstate preserve.

Camera, binoculars and spotting scope in tow, Eric Walters ended up with something else: snapshots of a golden eagle hunting seemingly impossible prey -- a grown white-tailed deer.

"It was really, really exciting to see one," Walters said, referring to the golden eagle. "And to see one hunting, going for a kill -- I've never seen that before. And then to see a golden try to take something out significantly heavier . . . hunting a deer is off the charts."

It appears the deer got away, though perhaps with a few scrapes from the bird's razor-like talons.

And Walters -- whose day job is in IT at Discover card -- got away with what he regards as the pictures of a lifetime.

Using a digital Canon 50D, he captured the bird hovering, descending and pursuing the stunned deer. The shots spanned just about 35 seconds, but they've already created quite a buzz in "birder" circles, since Walters posted them on the Illinois Birders' Forum.

"I have seen one golden in Illinois [in the wild] and that was the sighting of my life, period," said Jacques Nuzzo, program director of the Illinois Raptor Center, a Decatur-based rehabilitation and educational center focusing primarily on birds of prey. "For this guy to be in that space at that time, man oh man, and he got photographs? . . . He's either real awesome or real lucky."

Goldens are fairly common out West but rare in Illinois, experts said. "You're only going to see them during migration, and it's not like a flock of them come through," said the raptor center's executive director, Jane Seitz.

They're often confused with younger bald eagles because of their coloring.

Golden eagles, which are federally protected, can grow to 12 or more pounds with a wing span of seven-plus feet. They're also found in parts of Europe, Asia and Africa, and still are used by some falconers to hunt. (They can strike at speeds of well over 100 mph.)

While rodents are a big part of the golden eagle diet, they also will attack "mountain sheep, squirrels, caribou, coyotes, cranes, swans, immature peregrine falcons, snakes, frogs and fish," according to the Carolina Raptor Center, which puts their hunting "success rate" at about 30 percent.

While it's not unheard of for a golden to go after a deer, it's certainly unusual, experts said.

"It's not typical, it's not something they're normally going to do," said Brian Millsap, an eagle, owl and hawk expert with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in Albuquerque. But, "it's certainly not out of the question."

"When they get really hungry, when things are extremely tight, they'll take all kinds of things," said Millsap. "I've watched golden eagles take pronghorn antelope out West."

As another indication how word has spread about Walters' photos -- snapped Feb. 13 near the border of Ogle and Lee counties, two hours west of Chicago -- Millsap said he heard about them before even being contacted by a reporter.

"To capture that on film is great," Millsap said. "What that tells you is there's the average thing that any critter does, and there are the extremes that you don't see that often -- but they're there."

Walters, who grew up in Glen Ellyn, still is amazed not only that he captured the hunt on camera, but that the eagle tried to pull it off.

"From our point of view it's real ballsy, but from the eagle's perspective, I believe he really thought he could do it."

[MAK]

    It's hard to believe they'd go after such large prey. Just another example of how amazing nature is.