A$$ Kicking over a deer carcass....

Why not?

That fox is lucky; the eagle's just a Goldie. If it had been a full-grown Baldy, the fox prolly would have wound up getting hauled home to the Baldy's aerie as a treat for Mrs. Baldy and the chicks.

That is a really cool picture. Eagles are badasses!

As the forum states, the pic is a fake.

the fox is dead in the first place. if at least the photoshop job was done better.you can see a blurred shot wound on her shoulder, and rope around her foot.
sigh. neat composition, sorta, i guess. not that i care much.

A couple of guys on archerytalk thought the picture was fake, but it's not obvious to me. Looks kind of like the eagle might have grabbed the fox by the hindquarters and picked him up and then dropped him, which would likely have the desired effect of convincing the fox to leave. Whether an eagle that size would have an easy time killing a fox outright I don't know.

One thing I do know is that an eagle's killing powers are out of proportion to its size. Berkuts kill wolves and deer.

just look at the size of the eagle compared to the carcass on the ground. it would have to be the size of a velocirapter.

Fake or not, eagles are huge. I have bald eagles near my cabin and they love to swoop along the river harassing other large birds, like herons, trying to steal their fish. They are certainly birds of opportunity.

I doubt an eagle could carry away a 50+lb dog, espically if they are fighting back?

I have never seen a 50# fox.

I wasnt saying the fox was 50lbs..

i was just posing a question .

Best guesstimates are that eagles can carry about 1/2 their weight, so, at most about 7lbs.

there are some real problems. lots of hand-blurred spots - one big one on carcass, too, a few on the fox, plus the fox fails to cast a shadow where it should have been. it's also missing ends of the front paws, and no, it does not look like they are in the snow. plus the fox probably swooped down,too, there are no paw prints or signs of being around the carcass....
and the falcon's wingspan would have to be some 30 feet or so, if it's indeed a deer carcass, it's just disproportionate.

in any case it must have been a fun little photoshop session to do.

Next time McG, post one with a whale in it. No one will question the authenticity of the photo.

I said berkuts kill deer, not that this eagle killed one. The deer probably died of old age.

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A fox is a small animal, nowhere near fifty pounds.

I agree the pic looks to be a manip - biggest deal for me there is the area near the fox's head and forelimbs - at 16X the pic on the other forum, you plainly can see unnatural blurring, pixelation appears different from the pixelation of the surrounding image, and, biggest deal, just to the left of the fox's right leg, there's a distinct 90º vertical line - sure looks like an paste-in artifact to me. However, the scale comments don't really move me much - to my eye, the stuff there does look reasonably proportionate, especially considering the eagle, the fox, and the magpie. The presence of a magpie in a real scene of that sort is very possible, BTW - magpies like carrion, too, and its fairly reasonable to expect a fox might not put up much fuss over sharing a large carcass with a magpie - I've seen fox sharing roadkill with crows and magpies before. Eagles, however, ain't much into sharing with anything other than that eagles mate or chicks. Still, I lean toward thinking the photo is fake - even if the premise is plausible.

Here's one for ya - not "shopped" - a juvenile Baldy (prolly its 2nd winter - they don't develop the white head and bright yellow beak 'till around 4 to 5 years of age) enjoying a red fox:

All of what you said. Plus, the eagle's claws are not even holding the fox. Why is that bird just slowly and seemingly without fright flying below?

Wow, that was fun. We just duplicated a whole different thread on another site. They must be very proud to have such crossover appeal.

I think it's real, by the way. I just blew it up as high as possible in photoshop and looked at the supposedly blurred places, and the supposed rope on his leg, and honestly, I don't know what the hell you guys are talking about. As to the line to the left of the fox's right leg, I don't see that either, near the back leg or the front leg.

I guess it could have been touched up. But if so, it definitely isn't easy to tell.