Feeding garbage to eagles???

Nick Elms gave me a call last Saturday night and said he had seen 25-30 bald eagles feeding on "something" in a partially melted off soy bean field just east of Clear Lake, MN on highway 10. We made plans to meet at the field on Sunday morning around 11:30 or so and see if they were still there. Being highway 10 is really busy most of the time, I was a little nervous about sitting pulled off as far as we could and still observe the eagles. Nick was parked on a county road just south of the highway as we pulled off on the shoulder of the west bound lanes to take a quick look at the 10-15 eagles on the ground and in the trees way off on the back side of the field.



I still couldn't figure out what they were feeding on to draw them in concentrated numbers like this. After looking around, it was evident someone in a tractor had made a couple of passes around the field in the snow and what I first thought were the entrails from either a cow or pig which was butchered and scattered about turned out to be some type of garbage mixed in with something. Not cool. And certainly not healthy for the eagles. I hope the local conservation officer figured it out too. I wonder if I was able to find a dead eagle around the field and if it could be proven the death was the result of whatever was put in the field, if the landowner could be charged?



Sorry about the quality of the pics as we really didn't come prepared to shoot this. Namely, I didn't have a teleconverter with. It was more of a "let's check it out" side trip on our way to do some snowshoeing.