big raptors

It was a soggy, overcast morning but not entirely without a bit of drama. An immature Bald Eagle was perched on a dead tree at the point of Pine Neck and, as I watched, it made a couple of flapping/soaring flights over the mouth of Weesuck Creek. Was this the same bird I saw the other day on a foggy, badly lit morning? Now, with somewhat better light and a circling bird coming closer overhead, I could see white markings on its breast and back, suggesting a second year immature. As I was keeping an eye on this bird, it perched again on a different dead tree. I was moving into the marsh to get a closer look when a couple of things happened. The first bit of drama was a Peregrine Falcon that came shooting across the creek on a powerful straight line heading from the northeast to the southwest. Clearly a migration. The other was that the Bald Eagle took off again, disappeared around the corner of Pine Neck and then reappeared, landing on another tree. Now I could see clearly that it had a white head! How could I have missed this most obvious field mark? The explanation came a few minutes later when I realized that there were actually two birds, both perched on bare limbs not very far apart from one another, one with a white head and the other not. A second-year bird and an adult hanging out together! Eric Salzman