Bigger

We saw a couple of unusual animal fights in the last two days. Yesterday, a mature bald eagle landed too close to an active osprey nest for the ospreys' comfort. We saw the eagle hauling across the river to find safety in the trees on the opposite side with both osprey after him (probably given the size). Usually when smaller birds take on eagles they stay annoying above them, dropping down on them from an impossible location for the eagle to turn towards and pecking them into leaving. But the osprey were much bolder, chasing flat after the eagle from barely above them. It was probably a combination of their size and maneuvering ability, closer to that of an eagle than song birds, that gave them the luxury of a more frontal attack. The eagle was decidedly uninterested in turning to fight them.

Today we saw a sea gull diving on a black bird in the water as we paddled home, something that would not be unusual were it a duckling. The larger gulls will kill and eat very young birds. But this was not a duckling. The target of this attack was a bird that was about the size of the grey wing gull itself. As we came closer we realized it was a mature cormorant, a bird that is unlikely to receive fatal damage from a sea gull. By the time we got close the gull had given up its attack and the cormorant was on its way, with much shaking of the head and its feathers in some confusion over the attack. We guessed that the cormorant had surfaced with a fish in its mouth and the gull was after that.

Sometimes bigger isn't a factor.