Our helicopter made a short trip along the beach, then upwards to skim over the fringe forest and our goal was in sight. Perched 160 feet up a giant Douglas fir was a massive bald eagle's nest.
The brooding bird was visible in the nest at 100 yards. The distance shortened and at a mere 50 feet, she sat defiantly, her bright yellow eyes glaring at us. No shy or frightened expectant mother was she! With her mouth open and a very vexed expression on her face, she withstood three close passes of our noisy machine.
On the fourth pass I opened the window and shouted, Hello there! That did it - no self-respecting bald eagle was going to put up with this infringement on its privacy. Off she flew. With my head stretched out of the starboard window, I just managed to get a glimpse of something white in the nest. While we circled to make another pass the female was joined by her mate. She returned to the nest before we did, but the shier male flew off again - the movements of his beg yellow bill indicating his irritation.
The female had not completely settled upon her prospective family when our nearness again disturbed her. Hesitantly, she jumped to the outer rim of the huge nest, and poised for flight. There, cradled in a soft cup of moss and lichens, were three white gleaming eggs.
I was thrilled with the excitement of discovery. Finally, I had succeeded in finding a way to count the number of eggs in an eagle's nest.
Only later, in summarizing my eagle studies of the past few years, and two years after that helicopter flight, was I aware of just how important that nest and those eggs really were! I was studying bald eagles as part of my degree in wildlife management at the University of BC. From past studies, particularly as a high school student who loved hiking and boating, I already knew the southern British Columbia coast, particularly around Vancouver Island, contained many bald eagles.
My particular interest in this majestic bird goes back 12 years. As a high school senior, I was interested in the sport of falconry - the training of predatory birds to catch their prey for man. I had trained several smaller hawks, the coopers hawk, the goshawk, but had always marveled at the sight of lofty eagles. I dreamed of some day being able to tame one. But such dreams seldom have a basis in common sense. Then one day, the opportunity came - I was given a young golden eagle just out of the nest. She was truly a beautiful and spirited bird. I called her Venus, in honor of the Roman Goddess of Beauty which she personified. Her wing span was 7.5 feet and she weighed nearly 12 pounds - I've never seen a larger eagle. As I would approach Venus, tethered on her block, she would raise her hackles defiantly, and reach out with her massive talons for my gloved hand.
Like so many dreams, mine were based on fantasy or only on partial truth. I soon found out that her heavy weight was unmanageable, her temperament just a little too unpredictable and the paralyzing strength of her talons just too much for a high school youth to handle. However, I became so involved in handling Venus that I found all my spare moments were devoted to learning more about the wild habits of these magnificent creatures. The inspiration I got from watching the aerial supremacy of the birds of prey prompted me to try flying myself, and I don't mean by waving my arms up and down. I took flying lessons and received my private pilot's license in grade twelve. By the time graduation came around I was in a quandary. Should I go to university to become a wildlife biologist or become a pilot and keep nature studies as a hobby? I chose the latter - at least temporarily. After three years of flying, I returned to university to do my research on the life history of my favorite bird - old Baldy.
With the financial help of the American Museum of Natural History, the Audubon Society and the University of British Columbia, I have had the unprecedented good fortune of being able to study my favorite bird, the bald eagle, using my favorite machine - an aircraft. Although I've had my aircraft burned, been marooned on isolated islands, and been stranded up in an eagle's nest for nine hours, I wouldn't trade jobs with anyone.
When I gave up the flying career to enter university, it wasn't because I didn't like the flying. On the contrary, I enjoyed it so much I had figured out how a career in wildlife conservation could be aided by being able to fly. In fact, before I entered university, I knew I wanted to study bald eagles using the aircraft to help. The rugged BC coast is uninhabited except for a few fishing, Indian and logging villages. Transportation around this roadless area is possible only by boat or air. My flying experience also told me that I could locate eagles, and their nests, from the air. In fact, by piloting the aircraft closely enough to nests, I could easily count the number of young in the nest.
Since there were a lot of nests on the coasts, I wanted to do what scientists call a population study. I wanted to observe the habits of many eagles to get a generalized picture of what the whole population of eagles does.
For example, just how many young are produced on the average in each nest over a large area? Where eagles are living in large numbers as on our coast, how do they go about sharing or dividing up the amount of available food? Do the6y defend large territories like the mountain-dwelling golden eagles? Just how large is their defended territory? Do all bald eagles eat the same things? Is there a seasonal change in the diet of eagles? These are all questions that are better answered by studying many eagles rather than intensively following the life history of just one pair. Nature is always so variable that if we studied just one pair, we would never know if they behaved like the majority or were unusual.
To locate our nests, we have surveyed by aircraft many thousands of miles of shoreline, from Washington State, up the BC coast to the Alaskan border. |
