A gathering of eagles...

... a drama at the beach! A heron is being attacked.

Today I wished I had a better camera and was a better photographer.

This morning three young egles flew across my yard chasing each other. Their wing span filled my window. I couldn't believe it, they were so close.

Then I looked to the water and noticed a huge gathering of a few mature and many young eagles on a sand bank. Every once in a while some young eagles seemed to pick on each other and, "swoop", in comes mom or dad from a tree on the beach.

At least that's what I thought they were doing, squabbling, but when I looked closer at one of the pictures I took, I noticed that the eagles were all ganging up on a young heron. The bird was clearly already injured, collapsed in the sand. There was a lot of flying and screeching going on. I counted 12, another neighbour counted 18 eagles earlier in the morning.

I think these eagles were in predator training, the mature ones stayed back and only once in a while seemed to instruct the youngsters. After an hour most had left, only three small one sat in the sand, exhausted from all that learning. I didn't see the heron anymore, except a few steps away its family looked on.