After nearly two decades of photographing eagles, wildlife photographer Christian Sasse thought he’d seen just about everything. But one recent encounter in a remote area outside Vancouver left him completely awestruck.
While on a photography trip, Sasse came across an extraordinary sight: a vast congregation of bald eagles clustered together in shallow water. The birds were bathing, calling to one another and calmly sharing the space — hundreds upon hundreds of them in one place.
“It was unbelievable,” Sasse told The Dodo. “You don’t expect to see something like that.”
Eager to document the moment, Sasse also knew he had to move carefully. Bald eagles are famously wary of humans, and the slightest disturbance could send the entire group into the air.
“Eagles are very skittish,” he said.
So instead of approaching right away, Sasse spent several days slowly introducing his presence. He would park his car near the pond and leave it there, allowing the birds to grow accustomed to it. Only once they were comfortable did he begin quietly taking photos.
Many of the shots required intense patience and precision.
“I often shoot handheld,” Sasse said. “That means holding a huge lens, barely breathing, and staying completely still for long stretches of time.”
On the day he finally captured video footage, Sasse estimated there were at least 1,000 eagles gathered together. Watching them interact was just as remarkable as the sheer number.
“People think of eagles as solitary,” he said. “But they’re actually very social. Even though it looks chaotic, there’s a clear social order in how they bathe, take off and move around.”
When Sasse shared the footage on Facebook, viewers were stunned. One commenter perfectly summed it up by calling the scene an “eagle convention.”
Even experts are still unsure why bald eagles sometimes gather in such massive numbers. While biologists understand much about eagle behavior, these large social events remain mostly unexplained.
“As far as these big gatherings go, there’s very little known,” Sasse said.
That mystery is part of what made the experience unforgettable.
“It’s incredibly special,” Sasse said. “It gives you chills just thinking about it.”
To see more of Sasse’s work, you can follow him on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
