Bear climbs high to raid eagles' nest

Some Yellow Bay residents saw a surprising sight when a bear raided an eagles' nest on Sunday.

Is that a bear in an eagles' nest?

Sure enough, that's what Yellow Bay residents saw with their own eyes Sunday - a black bear that had set its sights on a nest inhabited by a mating pair of bald eagles.

"Our next-door neighbor was the one who spotted it," said Yellow Bay resident Chris Schroeder. "And the reason he spotted it was because the eagles were obviously in a frenzy."

The neighbor grabbed his binoculars and confirmed that it was indeed a black bear that had scampered at least 100 feet to the top of a spindly pine tree near the shore of Flathead Lake. Soon after, Schroeder and several other neighbors were watching the incident unfold.

"They weren't dive-bombing him or anything," she said of the eagles. "But they were flying around the bear in a frenzy. You could tell they didn't know what to do."

Schroeder's husband took pictures that show, at a great distance, the profile of an animal standing on all fours squarely on top of the eagle's nest.

"You really have no idea how big that nest is until you see a bear standing on top of it," she said.

The neighbors were uncertain exactly what the bear was pursuing, but they have a theory.

"You could see him scouring in the nest, and at one point, he had something hanging out of his mouth," Schroeder said. "There are probably fish in that nest, and he probably smelled those fish and climbed that tree."

The bear stayed in the nest for about five minutes, climbed back down and hasn't been seen since.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com