What a story man god that must of been mad witnessing that first hand. How big was the bird?
Sorry to have overlooked your query GF. I'd say wingtip to wingtip he was as wide as I am tall, 6ft.
For your interest, I will pass along another eagle yarn, and hope to be more succinct this time (but doubt it). In other words, a quickie but a goody (my specialty, lol!). On the west coast of Canada, you'll see bald eagles every day if you spend them either on the water or its immediate coastline. Spend enough time and know how to be unobtrusive in their domain, and you'll eventually see one rudely pluck a member of any number of different creatures from their daily lives. These "sea eagles" are very opportunistic and not particularly picky. But if there is one source of food they like most, and I had to guess, I'd have to say it was salmon. Makes sense, it's everyone's favourite out here.
When eagles hunt these powerful-in-their-own-right fish, it is damned dramatic and will impress the crustiest of crusty sea captains. They first scout the water by flying parallel to it about 100ft. up. The instant they spot something they make an almost 90 degree turn, upward, for 20-30ft more altitude. Then they tuck, roll attitude until pointing straight down, flap just once for momentum, and in a hard tuck to reduce drag they go straight at the water like they were shot from a cannon. It looks dangerous as hell. You start whispering to yourself, "pull up, pull up damn you!". Then, moments after what seems surely to have been the last chance to avert disaster, they flash open their wings as a powerful air brake, unsheath their great yellow talons and puncture their salmon clean through with both of them. It's a grip that won't be released until the eagle returns to its aerie and can tear the salmon flesh away with its sharp, hooked beak.
Lots of people have seen this, I bet even lots of people have seen it lots of times. But, what just about everyone would be willing to bet you, is that you'll
never see an instance whereupon the prey, a fish remember, vanquishes his airborne attacker. I mean, what would the physics of that even look like? How long would you have to hang around on the water to one day see it, if it does happen? Well, I don't know exactly, but I've got some rough figures.
I calculate that between 1994 and 2011 I spent more time at sea than on land. Not just my "waking hours", but all hours, full stop. Kayak guide, fishing guide, ferry captain, search and rescue, oyster farmer, tour boat guide, whale watching guide (hands down the best job on the planet), and I lived aboard my own boat for over 5 years, almost all of it in the wilderness. In that time I've obviously seen some pretty amazing things, I mean, I've spent almost 1000 hours in the constant and immed. presence of killer whales, you just
see stuff with those sort of numbers. But, it's not like I ever saw a salmon, or anything for that matter, snuff out a killer whale. Nevertheless, I did see one kill an eagle.
Some salmon species can get freakishly big out there at sea. 30, even 40 pounds of pure muscle fibre. Well, this salmon had to have been damn large (I only ever saw his dorsal area) because when that bald eagle got his hooks in, no matter how hard he flapped and thrashed he could not get this monster out of the ocean and, unfortunately for him, neither could he remove his talons from the salmon, for that is how they are designed. If he expressed any emotion or thought I could sense it was only that this wasn't going to plan. The very moment he could no longer pull with the maximum force he was instantly pulled under, then resurfaced just seconds later. Now an air of defeat could be seen. No panic, just exhaustion. Then, he was dragged below again and never resurfaced.
