The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Bald eagle dies from injuries after ‘game of chicken’
Raptor fight turns fatal after bird hit car
PORTLAND — A vicious fight between two bald eagles on Wednesday morning over Route 17 resulted in one losing its life after it plunged into a vehicle, fatally injuring the raptor, officials said.
The driver, Jessica Smith, was uninjured in the accident.
The raptor was suffering from internal bleeding and hemorrhaging while the veterinarian X-rayed both its wings following the crash, said Christine Cumming, president and cofounder of A Place Called Hope, birds of prey rehabilitaters in Killingworth,
who helped the eagle.
“He had no chance, unfortunately. He was already dying. We just didn’t want to prolong it,” Cummings said, so the veterinarian euthanized it.
Smith was on the way to her office in Massachusetts at about 6:30 a.m.
“It was scary, and I felt really bad for the eagle, and, of all things, to be an endangered animal,” she said. “That was pretty shocking. I’d never seen one in real life before.”
Haliaeetus leucocephalus, the Latin name for the majestic bald eagle, is a threatened species in Connecticut and the national bird of the United States.
Smith saw the two huge birds flying overhead, so she slowed down as they approached her car. When she saw the white tails, Smith doubted they were eagles.
“All of a sudden, they got even lower and kind of swooped out and then in — and clashed in mid-air,” she said. “Their talons were out, and wings and heads every which way.”
Smith was incredulously watching the two-second-long display illuminated by her headlights. One of the birds tucked its wings in, and dove down straight into her vehicle’s grill. She immediately pulled over and turned on the back-up camera in the car. Smith saw the bird was still moving, which upset her further.
“She witnessed two adult bald eagles in the sky having a dispute. When they’re in a territorial battle, they will often lock talons and do a game of chicken, where they’ll spiral down to the ground,” Cumming said. “Whoever lets go first is the loser — it’s one of the ways that birds fight.
“The one struck by her car … did an aerobatic move that basically plummeted him to the ground, straight into her car. He diverted the other eagle’s grab, and in his maneuver, he made a fatal mistake. He chose a maneuver that brought him down to traffic, and he flew right into the front end of her car,” Cumming said.
The other eagle was uninjured. Birds of prey have “ancient wisdom,” Cumming added. “The way their brains are developed is to focus on one thing at a time” — they don’t multitask like humans do, she said.
“That eagle, at that moment in time, was trying to escape the talons of the other eagle,” she added.
These raptors often scavenge for food along streets, including roadkill.
“They focus on that animal until they either grab it or miss it . ... They’re not watching for cars coming,” Cumming added.
Smith immediately pulled over and called 911. However, Cumming said, “that is for human emergencies,” so once the dispatcher discovered no one was injured, she suggested Smith move along.
“They’re more focused on people,” Cumming said of the emergency dispatcher, who told the woman police would be alerted. For some reason, that never happened. “[Smith] didn’t know what to do and [dispatch] insisted she move along, because it’s dangerous to stay in traffic.”
Portland Sgt. James Kelly, driving to work, happened upon the bird on the side of the highway. He immediately called Animal Control Officer Karen Perruccio, who called Cumming, a friend of hers.
Perruccio took a photo of Cumming and the eagle and posted it to Facebook. It immediately went viral — and has since garnered 266 comments and 2,754 shares.
In the picture, Cummings cradles the giant creature in the crook of one arm as if it were a newborn. Her expression is a mix of concern and assuredness.
An impact like that, from a very large bird, some of which travel at 100 mph, flying and falling at that speed, could have been much worse.
“She’s lucky she’s got her life and didn’t have a bad accident,” Cumming said of Smith.
Cumming guesses it was a male eagle. Female birds of prey are larger by a third, and males usually weigh between 8 and 9.5 pounds and females 9 to 12 pounds — sometimes more, Cumming said.
“That does not sound like a lot, but it is for birds, who are hollow-boned and meant to be buoyant and light, so that’s a lot of weight for a bird,” Cumming said. These birds have a wingspan of 7 feet, she added.
Cumming said people who come upon injured raptors or any other animal, dead or alive, should call state police, the local animal control officer, and the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, which handles these types of cases.
“The response for this bird was quick, despite that lapse in time. It really all fell together as fast as it could for this bird,” she said. “(Unfortunately,) the bird was doomed. He was dying right before our eyes.”
One wing was completely detached.
“There’s no fixing that,” she said. The other wing was broken. If its wings weren’t broken and it was not so badly injured, Cumming added, it would have been a “nonreleasable candidate,” that could be rehabilitated but not released back into the wild.
“That’s how bad the break was,” she said. Also, the bird wasn’t banded, so there was no way it could be tracked to determine whether it lived locally or was coming from up north, migrating to warmer temperatures.
After her ordeal, Smith was shocked to see the incident “blew up” on Facebook. “It’s been a really weird last couple of days,” she said.
Smith is grateful for Cumming and A Place Called Hope.
“They do a ton of good work — they rescued two birds in the last couple days,” she said.
In fact, as Cumming spoke Friday afternoon, she was awaiting a person bringing in an injured barn owl.
In Portland in such situations, people can call the ACO at 860-3426789, dispatchers at 860-347-2541, and the DEEP at 860-424-3333.
Visit A Place Called Hope at aplacecalledhoperaptors.com or call 203804-3453.