Observing the American Bald Eagle - A Hobby of Mine

Hello Intellectuals. This will probably be a long story so I will  not try to cover it all now. This will be the introduction and I will write more later.

I live in north Alabama in an area called the Tennessee Valley - referring to the area around the Tennessee River in north Alabama. It is a beautiful area in terms of scenery and wildlife and opportunities to enjoy the outdoors and wildlife. I take advantage of it. Photography is one way I enjoy the outdoors and share it with others.

As of the year 1980 the American Bald eagle was still on the endangered species list and there was not a single active eagle nest in Alabama. The state Department of Fish and Game starting releasing young eagles in Alabama around 1986. In the year 2000 I had never seen a bald eagle in the wild and never heard of any living in the Tennessee Valley area.

However back in the 1980's one of our state parks, Lake Guntersville State Park, was getting lots of migratory eagles coming down from the north areas each winter. They started having special weekend events where they took people out to see eagles and also held educational events in at their lodge. That went on for years before I ever even heard of it.

So somewhere around the year 2004 I heard about the park having eagles in the winter. So in 2006 I rode over there (about an hour and a half from my home) and saw my first bald eagle in a telescope on a Saturday morning.

I started attending their weekend sessions. They usually had these special events for 6 weekends each Jan and Feb.

Much closer to my home is a large river called Elk River. That is the area where I grew up hunting and fishing and swimming. In the winter of 2005 one of my brothers called me and said that while he was duck hunting on Elk River with my other brother, they had been watching a pair of eagles build a nest there. 

More later.

Well the location of the eagle nest on Elk River was way up in a tall tree on a tall hill on private land. So while I couldn't get close to it, there was a public boat landing across the river and a little downsteram. So we could use binoculars and telescopes to watch the eagles from there - which we did. So for the next few years we (my girlfriend Inez and I) would to to Guntersville on January and February weekends and spend the weekday afternoons watching  the eagles nest on Elk River. That went on without a lot of changes for two years. During that time I contacted the state dept of fish and game and asked them some questions about eagles in our area. As a result I met a man named Keith who was the north Alabama biologist and eagle expert. Keith told me that if I was going to watched that nest regularly, would I mind documeting my observations and sending that into him. The state wildlife people kept a database of different eagle nests and if I could give him reports over a long period of time that would aid them in having a useful database. So I started watching the Elk River eagles regularly and writing reports regularly.

The main thing they wanted to know was that the nest and birds were still OK and how many baby eagles they raised each year.

more later.

Bald eagles nest only once each year - in the winter. The babies hatch in the late winter. They spend 9 - 12 weeks in the nest before they learn to fly. National statiatics say that about 42% of the time eagles hatch only one young - 42% of the time they hatch two young and 16% of the time they hatch three. Those numbers do not seem to be accurate for the Tennessee Valley area. Here I would put the numbers closer to about 33% for one chick, 40% for two and 27 for three chicks. That is usually determined by the health of the female. She has to produce enough protien to make eggs on consecutive days. Many can only make one egg and their protien goes too low. Some can generate enough protien two days in a row and some very healthy females that have a good diet can make egges three days in a row.

The first two years I watched the Elk River eagles. They had 3 babies each year and in both cases the young grew up to fledge successfully.

Then in year 3 - 2009, something changed.

more later...

In the fall of 2008 the eagles moved across the river and built anew nest over on the side where I had been watching from. That allowed me to get close enough for lots of good pictures.

In the spring of 2009 they only had one chick - which is rare for that pair. In the summer of 09 after the chick had left the nest a storm came up and the entire nest blew out of the tree, which is not common but also not real rare. They rebuilt the nest that fall and hatched two chicks in the spring of 2010. Whne the babies were very large and about a week or two weeks from being old enough to fly a storm damaged the nest and all 4 eagles just disappeared. I didn't know if the young birds had died or survived for about two weeks. Later I saw two juvenile eagles flying in the area and decided thata those two were the two young from that nest.

So I continued to monitor this pair of eagles and write reports to the Alabama Fish and Game Wildlife agency. After the second year of storm damage on that nest the two adults moved up the river about a mile and built a new nest. That 3rd nest was very good for them. They successfully raised babies there four years in a row with no problems as far as I could tell. Then in the fall of 2015 they moved another mile up the river and built nest number 4. They had two young fledge from that nest in 2016 and three in 2017.

As part of the Eagle Awarenss program at Lake Guntersville State Park in 2017 I did a one hour talk with a slide show about the Eagles of Elk River. I updated that talk and did it again on January 26th of 2018. As far as I know the two eagles are still in that nest and about to lay new eggs any day now.

My wife watches a pair on the cam in Iowa. They sit in the snow and wind and take care of those eggs. Then feed several on a constant basis.

A great symbol for the country.

Some photos would be nice.

Photos to come.

Let me see the best way to post photos.....

I have lots of photos...

and another... This is a juvenile eagle. They don't get that distinctive white head and tail till they are about 4 or 5 years old.

And another again...

Great Photos JustaDude80..

Thanks horsehead. 

I am not fortunate enough to be able to watch those magnificent birds myself (we are a bit short of birds of prey in the Fens, to be frank), but I hope you don't mind if I post a compilation video of action shots of some of your birds' close and distant relatives in action. Awe inspiring creatures!

Thanks for posting that Elroch. Those Golden Eagles are bad boys for sure. I have never seen one live and in person, but there are a few in my area in the winter.

An old friend of mine is on holiday in Arizona and  just posted this pic she took.

Excellent!!

Well this past Friday night I did the talk about the eagles of Elk River again as part of the Eagle Awareness Program at Lake Guntersville State Park. The talk  went very well. The crowd was about 100 people and they seemed to enjoy my talk and my pictures.

Nice pictures. A nice hoby!