I saw an immature Golden Eagle soaring over Snowy Mountain on June 2. My
property faces Snowy, and I see Golden Eagles from my deck sometimes. Dr.
Mitchell Byrd has visited my farm, and he told me that he thinks they are
probably breeding somewhere in the area. Although I see Goldens in the summer,
I have never seen one carrying nesting material. I am watching and waiting,
however!
Margaret O'Bryan
-----Original Message-----
From: Sandy Hevener <hevener@xxxxxxx>
To: tomlyn@xxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 08:17:01 -0400
Subject: [va-bird] Re: Golden eagles
This is Sandy Hevener in Blue Grass VA/Highland County. I'm involved in an
ongoing eagle survey here. You need not apologize for the "poor quality"
images- they are quite good enough to distinguish the species and very useful
for people learning the difference between immature balds and adult golden
eagles. If you had truly seen golden eagle(s) in Virginia this time year,
particularly in your area, it would cause quite a roar... Officially they
migrate to Virginia for the winter and don't nest south of NY on this side of
the Mississippi .
Here in Highland between Jan. 13 and April 15, 2006, observers reported 124
eagle sightings on 91 occasions. Of these 68 were bald (54 adults & 14
immature) and 53 golden (23 adults & 30 immature.) Obviously, because of the
time-frame, we do not know how many individual birds this represents. We did
document two bald eagle nests with eaglets- the first on April 9 and the second
on April 29, after the initial period of the ongoing survey. Thanks to
Charlottesville birder and nature photographer Brenda Tekin photos of these are
here: www.bathhighlandbird.org
The site contains the full data, photos of adult & immature bald and golden
eagles and map with sightings. We call this project "Eagle Watch." These are
the first nests documented in Highland and based on sighting clusters we are
reasonably sure there are several more.
On May 29 a resident (Keith Carson) scoped two immature golden eagles in the
area that had a very high concentration of golden eagle sightings during the
winter. He only had his scope and not camera, but was quite sure they weren't
immature bald eagles. He and his wife (Polly Newlen) reported seeing two
immature GOEA circling high with a couple of buzzards above Snowy Mt. A dead
coyote was hanging on a fence up a hollow behind another resident's house (Goog
Colaw) and the birds were cautiously flying over it. Another resident (Pen
Goodall) reported seeing a single golden eagle in an area seven miles SW of
this on May 25 & June 10, but didn't have a camera either time. He says he's
seen a golden in the same spot for several summers.
If you are out this way and see (or photograph!) eagles please write down the
location, day, time, species, age and describe what the eagle(s) did- flew in
circle, perched in sycamore tree, flew north carrying a stick, etc. Send the
information along with your contact information (for verification purposes) to:
hevener@xxxxxxx
or call me at (540) 474-5605
Sandy Hevener
General Delivery
Blue Grass, VA 24413
Thomas M Blair wrote:
Va Birders,You are subscribed to VA-BIRD. To post to this mailing list, simply send email
I've been off the list for quite some time and just re-joined. > I wanted to
report that this past Sunday, we were at our local bird > watching area and
sighted two Golden Eagles. We were at Cumberland > Marsh. It's a little-known
Nature Conservancy preserve here in New > Kent County.
I had seen these birds in the area earlier in the year, but they were > very
far away. We normally only see Bald Eagles, so it was quite > exciting.The
preserve is quite accessible, parking is right near an > observation platform
overlooking the Pamunkey river. It's a beautiful > and secluded area with a
lot of bird species. A deer nearly ran smack > into us while on one of the
trails. There are wheat fields surrounding > the preserve in which we saw
many species of birds, and a few rabbits > as well. Earlier in the spring
there were lots of Greater Yellowlegs > in the fields and along the shore, as
well as many Canada Geese.
Here is a link with directions to the preserve.
http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/virginia/preserves/art1232.html
We have kayaked the area in the past and heard rather than saw, > hundreds of
Sora in the wild rice along the riverbanks. (I've yet to > get a picture of
one). We discovered two perching limbs for the > Eagles, noted by the many
droppings on the ground and feathers as > well. We'll try again next weekend.
I did manage to capture a few > images of the Golden Eagles, but the quality
leaves a lot to be > desired. My 400mm lens didn't have enough reach. Here's
a link to the > images.. My apologies for the poor quality..
http://www.pbase.com/tomlyn/raptors ;
If you are in the Richmond area, we hope you'll take a short drive to > New
Kent County and give it a try.
Lynda Blair
