A West Vancouver man was running beside the ocean this week when a commotion above him in the sky caught his attention.
Turner Parkinson and his two dogs were along the West Vancouver Centennial Seawalk just before 7 p.m. on Monday when the wildlife encounter unfolded.
"It was a nice, beautiful sunset happening and a little bit of rain,” he recalled.
While admiring the sunset, an "army" of seagulls was flying up above.
“I looked up at the buildings, and I noticed an eagle had caught a seagull, which I'd never seen before,” said Parkinson.
He watched in awe as an eagle soared above him with a flapping seagull, still alive, in its talons.
“I’m not really sure what was going on there, but it was definitely very interesting to see,” he told Glacier Media. "I don't know if it was getting ready to eat some seagull dinner or something."
He took out his cellphone and filmed the eagle-seagull duel, which only lasted about two minutes before the eagle flew off with its prey.
Rob Hope, general manager at OWL Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society in Delta, watched Parkinson's video.
"It's nature at its finest. That's really cool,” he said. "For the gentleman to actually get it on video is pretty cool.”
The eagle saw a feasting opportunity and took it, according to Hope.
"You can see it's still alive while he's flying around with it,” he said.
Eagles tend to "flush" seagulls and find the slowest or weakest one of the bunch.
“That’ll be his target,” said Hope.
“It's an adult bird, so he's more than likely going to take it back to the roost, where he disappeared around the building. He's probably going to go land on a building, finish it off and eat it."
Surprisingly, an eagle eating a seagull happens more often than people might think.
“The eagle will pray on a variety of things. They're not only scavengers, but they will prey on rabbits and ducks and galls, whatever is plentiful or available,” explained Hope.
Parkinson was sad to learn the eagle likely ate the seagull.
"That's pretty brutal...I feel sorry for that seagull. They should have had some bigger, tougher, nicer friends,” he said.
Hope, meanwhile, said it’s an incredible thing to witness, especially in a city.
“Nature is cruel in one way, but pretty remarkable in another,” said Hope. “If people keep their eyes open, you know, nature is happening around them.”
