Last week I spotted a bald eagle swimming. The bird appeared to be doing the butterfly stroke lifting it wings out the water and then plunging them back in with a definite reaching forward to propel itself.
It took me a while to realize what I was actually seeing. The bird passed around a bedrock point and out of view before I could take a picture.
As I continued along the shore I flushed the eagle. The bird managed to lift off the ground with a large fish and despite the troubled take off managed to get into a tree perch where I would not be able to steal his catch.
The first time I saw a video of a bald eagle swimming, I was shocked. I had no idea they could do that. If you go to youtube, though, and type into the search box "bald eagle swimming" (or some such), you'll find lots of videos of BEs doing just that. Usually it's because they caught something too big for them to fly with and/or their talons are too deeply embedded. That way of swimming has to be really exhausting.
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