GATHERINGS OF EAGLES

     During winter, many bald eagles in North America gather where food is abundantly available, including along rivers that remain ice-free and farmland where dead livestock is dumped into fields.  Those eagles congregate from early November to early February, mostly along flowing rivers that don't freeze as quickly as lakes.  That is the time when still waters are usually frozen shut, wall to wall.  The wonderfully large concentrations of bald eagles create inspiring, dramatic spectacles that are exciting to see along running rivers in winter.

     Many bald eagles winter below hydroelectric dams on rivers, such as Conowingo Dam on the Susquehanna River in Maryland.  Water falls through turbines, spinning them to generate electricity, and surges out and up below the dam, keeping the water ice-free all winter.  Therefore, fish below the dams, and those fish that went through the turbines, are vulnerable to attack from bald eagles, great blue herons, belted kingfishers, ring-billed gulls, double-crested cormorants, common merganser ducks and other kinds of fish-eaters.  Gangs of turkey vultures and black vultures clean up the remains of feasts from the above-listed birds.    

     All ages of bald eagles are in those winter groupings, perched on river-side tree limbs, boulders and mud flats, and on patches of mid-river ice.  Several eagles could be soaring gracefully over rivers at once in search of larger, sluggish fish to snatch from the waters' surfaces, creating exciting, daily spectacles.  They course back and forth over the water, without collision.

     When an eagle spots prey, it quickly sweeps into the wind and glides gracefully down to the water, grabs the fish in one or both sets of sharp, curved talons, without wetting a feather, and flaps up and away on powerful wingbeats to a perch to ingest its victim.  Other bald eagles, however, flap strongly to the eagle with the fish to try to steal it away for itself.  The eagle with the fish may drop it to escape harassment, and the pursuing bird might snatch the fish out of mid-air, which is intriguing to see.

     Bald eagles also catch ducks, coots and other critters that live along rivers and lakes.  And, like vultures, they scavenge dead fish and other creatures they find dead and unattended.  

     Many bald eagles are attracted to several rivers and national wildlife refuges across North America in winter, including up to 300 at a time at Conowingo Dam, around 200 at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Maryland and over 50 at Lake Onalaska along the Mississippi River in Wisconsin.  Those are a few of the best places to see bald eagles east of the Mississippi in winter.  And one can see them in person, or by video, or live cameras broadcasted on computer screens.  

     But maybe the largest gathering of wintering bald eagles in North America is along a five-mile stretch of Chillcat River at Chillcat, Alaska.  It's estimated that about four thousand bald eagles in a bald eagle preserve are attracted to and catch spawning salmon there.  That must be an unbelievable spectacle.    

     Many wintering bald eagles are paired, and some of them leave the great concentrations of eagles early in February to make preparations for raising another clutch of one to three young for the year.

     By early November, bald eagles form fantastic gatherings of themselves where food is plentiful through winter.  And those concentrations are exciting to experience, either in person, or through live cameras and computer screens.           

     

      

         

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