In the Eye of the Eagle

Where once there were almost none, they are now plentiful. Will we ever know when they have reached a point where there are too many, as there are too many geese, too many herons, too many cormorants. And if we do, what will we ever be able to do about it?

Were you aware of any eagles last week? It was eagle awareness time in the cities where people could come to nature centers and see an eagle close-up. It seems like such a goofy thing to those of us who live out in the country and see them all the time, year round. There are more eagles today than you can shake a pair of binoculars at. Once this winter I saw eleven in one place on the river, and each year one will roost in the oaks above my pond several times, 100 yards from my office.

There is an eagle nest on the river less than two miles from my home, as the crow flies, or as the eagle flies too. It has been there for years and every year I observe the sequence of building up the nest, mating and laying eggs, feeding the eaglet, or eaglets, watching the young birds take to flight and learning to do things on their own. I know where there are six such nests on waters where I hunt and fish. There is one nest I can look down on in the spring, from a ridge top where I turkey hunt. It is fascinating.

Each year, when we have mild calm days in late February, we conduct a day long trip to Truman Lake, take a dozen people across it on a pontoon boat to a very wild inaccessible area, and have a fish fry dinner and a couple of three-hour hikes out into the woods. Part of that day is spending 30 minutes or so at rather close proximity to a pair of eagles preparing a nest for the coming spring.

They keep building that nest up, adding more sticks to it, making it heavier and stronger. To me it is a marvel, that nest high up in the triple fork of a huge sycamore, that withstands the winds it must withstand.

I have watched eagles for hours, observed them enough to become very “aware” of them. In 1958, I saw my first one, and I will never forget it. He was bathing in the river in November, and my dad sneaked right up close to him in our johnboat while we were duck-hunting. Because of the blind on the bow, he didn’t know we were there, and we got to within 30 yards of him. It was an “eagle awareness day” if there ever was one. There were almost none to be seen then.

It is said that young eagles do not develop the white head until sometime between their second and third year. It is said they are capable of killing a young calf, and they are. That makes farmers wary of them. I think there are times in the winter when they are seen eating on a calf that they found dead and someone figures they killed it. Eagles eat as much carrion, I believe, as the average buzzard. Back during the deer season, I floated a river and saw five of them sitting on a dead doe, having a feast.

And that is not to say they are not a powerful, deadly raptor. They are. I have observed that power, that strength. Amazing! They will eat ANYTHING they can clobber and kill like a slow bolt out of the blue, and I have seen them do that, when I was out somewhere being aware of eagles. They also do a pretty good job on fish in northern and western trout waters, but you know they don’t seem to eat many fish here in the Ozarks that they actually catch. They feast in the winter on lakes where natural die-offs give them plenty of fish to eat.

And in the Ozarks, they are rough on migrating ducks and geese… not so much the healthy ones as the ones which have been crippled or are sick. And an eagle loves coots. Coots are so numerous, slow and stupid they are like eagle candy. I guess you could say that coots are lacking eagle awareness.

It’s a funny thing about what is happening in our natural world, with migration patterns so absolutely different now than 100 years ago. We have plenty of migrating eagles pass through the Ozarks, but some are here year round, never leaving. Those which nest close to me never go very far, it seems. At any time of year, I know about where I can find them.
I believe, when you start being aware of eagles, you have to be aware that those eagles living in the Ozarks year round live a much different life than those out west, even though they are the same bird. That’s understandable, Ozark outdoorsmen like me eat more squirrel and less pizza than our relatives in St. Louis, more fish and less fondue, you might say!

Recently a friend called and read me something a writer from the city had written, touting the unbelievable sight of an eagle. He said that an eagle can spot a rabbit at a distance of one mile. Those are the things you read from writers who live in the suburbs, drive to work in traffic jams, and go to “eagle awareness days” observations.

It comes from getting all you know, and all you write, out of a book. Scientists examine the eyes of an eagle and figure out what they think he can do with them but they don’t spend enough time outdoors watching what they do with them. Just a few days ago, I was out in the woods behind my house when I saw an eagle flying over, just above the treetops. I stood there watching him, and he was nearly above me before he saw me, and the second he did, I saw him react. Often, on the river I see them before they know I am there, and you can see them react then too. Yes, I know what great vision they have, but in that city where that writer works, there are folks oohing and aahing about how an eagle can see a rabbit a mile away. Maybe he CAN… but he DOESN’T.

He flies low over the water, hunting ducks or fish, he doesn’t get up there a couple hundred feet to spot them and make an osprey-like dive to catch breakfast. I reckon maybe he could see a rabbit at a mile if it was on a concrete parking lot, running in circles. But then, I don’t think he’d fly a mile to get one.

The time will come that all who write about the outdoors will have grown up in the city, and live in some crowded suburb, and write about the outdoors from what they read in books. The old time writers who actually lived out there, and did what they write about, are becoming few. It is great to know what the books say, because those people like John James Audubon and Roger Petersen, were out there in the woods making observations, but you need to spend ten hours out in the wilds by yourself for every hour you study those books. That’s where you learn the most. Combining the two gives you an insight few will ever know.

When I was a wildlife management student at the University of Missouri, I saw things in the books that did not fit what I had seen in the woods and on the river as a boy. That is because, as I said, an eagle in Montana, and an eagle in Missouri, are to some degree, different birds.

Remember this…You can best be aware of the eagle, by watching him when he is not aware of you, off in the wilds somewhere.

To join one of our day-long trips into the woods between now and spring, send an address and we will mail you the information.My address is Box 22, Bolivar, Mo. Or e-mail lightninridge@windstream.net The website is www.larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com.