This past weekend we decided to go watch the Eagles near the town of Seabeck Washington. Seabeck is just a short drive from Silverdale. It has a historic Seabeck General Store, a public pier, and boat launch. It has become known as a great place to watch eagles feeding and interacting. The best viewing area is just off of the Seabeck Highway causeway on Big Beef Creek.
The Bald Eagles and Great Blue Herons congregate here during low tide to feast on Midshipman fish that come to the oyster beds to breed. Interesting facts about the Midshipman fish is that they can breathe air when out of the water and are bioluminescent during courtship.
We arrived 2 hours before low tide to ensure we got a parking spot. It was a beautiful sunny day with blue skies. The water had two distinct blues and the mountains felt within an arms reach. This weekend also had negative tides which made this weekend a great weekend to go Eagle watching. The negative tides exposed a lot of the oyster beds ideal for the Herons and Eagles to feed in the muddy tide flats.
Once the tide started to recede it exposed the oyster beds and tide pools. The first Eagles to appear were immature eagles, which can be identified by their mostly dark heads and tails with brown wings and mottled white bodies. They started by harassing and taking fish away from the Great Blue Herons fishing in the tide pools. The activity of the Eagles went up and down as they came in waves from all directions soaring above and diving for fish. Most of the fish were small and the Eagles just gobbled them down. After a while, the tide was out so far that the Eagles were able to hop from spot to spot grabbing fish with their beaks. We counted a total of about twenty Bald Eagles in the area. To view some of the photographs taken click Eagles Feeding at Big Beef Creek.