When Jared Paben came upon a group of neighbors looking up at a tree this afternoon he thought to himself: "Why do people care about crows, they're all over the neighborhood?"



It turns out the crows were harassing a bald eagle that was perched in a tree above NE 24th and Tillamook this afternoon.



"Most of the noise was coming from the crows. He was pretty quiet," Paben said.



It was quite a spectacle. "Pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers all stopped to take photos with their cell phones and watch. We could hear small bird chirping nearby, so we assumed there was a nest, although we weren't sure if it was the eagle's nest or crow's nest," Paben said.



Paben has lived in the neighborhood for approximately 8½ months, and this is the first time he has seen an eagle perched. He shot these photographs during the 20 minutes he was there with the eagle.



Eventually the eagle flew away. "They (crows) were gone for about 5 minutes, then they came back. They drove him away. He flew off and they chased him," Paben said.



At one point Paben noticed a squirrel poised at he base of the tree, which was there for about five minutes. "The squirrel was watching very intensely, not moving a muscle," he said.



If you wonder why the eagle didn't bother taking out the crows, read this post by Whit Gibbons for the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory.

While we don't have video of this particular event to go with the photos above, here are two videos we found of crows harassing eagles.

Crows harassing very young Bald Eagle in Belmont, NC from Van Hawkins on Vimeo.