Advertisement I had intended to go with Dan Jackson and other members of the Coulee Region Audubon Society on a field trip to Buffalo County on the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi River to look for the golden eagles. An alarm clock malfunction (ahem) forced me to trail after the group later on my own.
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Donald, the golden eagle being cared for at the National
Eagle Center in Wabasha, Minn., has golden head feathers,
dark eyes and a blue-tinted beak. Check out the Ridgerunner Reports photo gallery to see
more pictures by Jim Solberg.
Photo by Jim Solberg |
Without the keen eyes of the experienced birders to help, my search was futile but the group of experts saw four golden eagles. Since they were all too far away to photograph, though, I wasn’t too disappointed.
Golden eagles are nowhere near as common as the bald eagle. They are found mainly in mountainous regions of western United States and in Canada. A few dozen or so show up every winter along the bluffs and coulees of Buffalo County, where they hunt mammals such as squirrels and rabbits rather than fish like the bald eagles do.
Scott Mehus, education program specialist at the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, has been studying the winter population of golden eagles for years now, and he has even watched them capture and kill wild turkeys larger than themselves.
He said last weekend that they are somewhat larger and more predatory then the bald eagles, “much preferring food that they have killed by themselves.” The golden eagles, in fact, belong to a different group of eagles and are upland birds. Bald eagles prefer to live near water and feed on fish but, as we’ve seen before, they frequently feed on road kill or other carrion.
Golden eagles are sometimes confused with young bald eagles, but they have a smaller, less yellow beak and have golden head feathers on the top and back of their heads.
In spite of their predatory preferences, Mehus has been trying to lure golden eagles with piles of road-killed mammals and waterfowl in wide-open areas of Buffalo County. He was hoping to shoot a net over them while they fed and then equip them with a GPS tracking device to determine where they are coming from.
Mehus told me last week he has successfully coaxed a couple to come close but so far the nets have failed to work fast enough to catch the eagles.
A recent golden eagle survey in the tri-state region by dozens of skilled observers produced 70 sightings of golden eagles, with 50 of them being seen in Buffalo County. The same survey reported 390 bald eagles in the same region.
Though I missed the golden eagles last week, I did see around three-dozen bald eagles, most of them in a field behind a chicken farm near Alma where the deceased chickens were disposed. The eagles are keenly aware of the location and opportunity and dozens of them gather at these farms to take advantage of the feast.
Witnessing this spectacle was one of my eagle goals, so the sight of all those eagles swooping in one after another followed by the scuffling and squabbling as they fed was a special treat. The sound of all those eagles talking at once was also something that’s hard to forget. Only the coot feeding frenzy that I heard this fall near Reno, Minn., could come close to matching the cacophony.
Golden eagle
I later met the Audubon group across the river at the National Eagle Center, where I also met Mehus. I later enjoyed his well-attended educational program on the eagles of our region. One can learn a lot from these programs as well as from the many displays and exhibits at the center. Visitors also get a close look at the four live bald eagles and Donald, the golden eagle at the center.
All have been injured somehow or they have been poisoned by lead shot or fishing lures. Many damaged birds such as these are rehabilitated so they can be released back to the wild, but the NEC eagles have all been injured too seriously to survive by themselves. They will be cared for the rest of their lives at NEC and are available for educational purposes at the center and throughout the country on special occasions.
The eagles were displayed in a special room with a view of the river where people can visit and photograph them. Occasionally, one of the bald eagles would call loudly to a wild relative that could be seen soaring over the Mississippi River outside. At intervals, one of the eagles is carried into the lobby where guests can be photographed with our national bird.
Viewing areas with telescopes both inside and outside offer a sweeping view of the Mississippi River, the riverine woods and the bluffs on the Wisconsin side.
Mehus dramatically illustrated the keen eyesight of the bald eagle when he pointed out that an eagle at NEC could easily see a rabbit running around on those bluffs three miles away across the river. I could then understand how the bald eagles that were barely visible to me as they sat in trees across the Mississippi River on La Crosse’s Pettibone Island could suddenly swoop down to catch five-inch shad that they had spotted on my side of the river.
Whaditiz
The golden eagle is the larger of the two and the females of both species are larger than the males.
Contact Jim Solberg at nitefrogger@charter.net or (608) 782-2560.
