As we ended our call, another birding photography colleague in Canada called me news of an unbelievable sighting that occurred in Nova Scotia. For those not familiar with Canadian geography, it’s on Canada’s eastern border, and what was sighted was a truly extraordinary birding encounter. Instead of migrating south from the Kamchatka Peninsula, a Steller’s Sea Eagle took it upon itself to forge a new path and take an adventure away from Russia and Japan and visit the United States and Canada. It seems to be taking a reverse course of the Bald Eagle that traveled to Hokkaido earlier this year, February/March. The Kamchatka Peninsula is a little more than 400 km from Bering Island, and with the pack, ice to rest on, and plenty of delicious fish to feed on while making the trip, it’s feasible that the Steller’s Sea Eagle started an island-hopping campaign (or escaped a bird sanctuary? I have heard of Steller's sea eagles showing up in Alaska, but Texas and NovaScoatia Canada never. Either this bird escaped from a bird sanctuary, or our earth's magnetic field is playing tricks with this bird, or it's Magnetite, and or our eyes are playing tricks with it; either way, I hope it finds its way home.)
Then it moved from Bering Island to Near Island, then Rat Islands, Andreanof Islands, the Aleutian Islands, and ultimately reaching Alaska while dining on its two favorite fish, trout or salmon. After Alaska, it most likely took a coastal course down to Oregon or California and then headed inland to Texas where it was sighted next, then it turned north up to New Brunswick and Quebec before its last sighting in Nova Scotia. The Steller’s Sea Eagle is one of the most giant and most fierce diurnal birds on Earth, which is why they are such formidable hunters, tracking prey since the age of the dinosaurs, so I can’t imagine hunting and foraging would have been any real challenge for this adept bird of prey. Their plumage is blackish brown-black all over except on the shoulders, rump, tail, thighs, and forehead, which are white. Their HUGE, hooked bill is yellow; when they feed, they do it with raw power.  These eagles are huge, on average, the heaviest raptor on our planet, weighing up to and over 10 kg (22 pounds). They are also tall, measuring up to 94 cm (3 ft), sometimes even taller, with a huge wingspan of up to 250 cm (8 - 9 ft).  With all the amount of evolutionary perfection the Steller’s Sea Eagle has achieved, it’s possible that it wanted to explore a new region or start an adventure that other Steller’s Sea Eagles could follow. No one can predict how long the Steller’s will stay or if it will stay. Still, I can guarantee you will photograph them on my annual Hokkaido Birding Wildlife Photography Expedition, and if we’re lucky, its visiting cousin, the Bald Eagle, may show up.