Eager group braves cold to observe bald eagles

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As bird-watching venues go, the first stop on Saturday’s foray afield, offered in conjunction with Bangor’s Winter Weekend festival, wasn’t anything to write home about.

At least, that’s the way it seemed at first.

Along with a couple of volunteers from the Penobscot Valley Chapter of Maine Audubon, a dozen or so folks turned out in hopes of spying a bald eagle on a two-hour tour of potential eagle haunts.

That was what the flier said.

And that was what Audubon volunteer Jerry Smith was trying to provide.

There was a bit of a problem, however.

“Ice makes it really hard, because [eagles’] source of food is going to be somewhere else,” Smith said. “If there’s open water there will be ducks, and gulls come to bathe in the water, just hang out on the river. But with this much ice in the river, there’s not that much chance for the ducks to be around.”

Ducks (especially the slow ones, or the unhealthy ones) are prime eagle chow during the winter, Smith explained.

And that’s why we were there Saturday, in the shadow of the nearby oil tanks, craning our heads at … um … Bangor’s wastewater treatment lagoons.

Open water, remember, means ducks. And one thing the Bangor wastewater treatment plant has is open water. Plenty of it.

Don’t laugh. It worked.

Dozens of ducks paddled contentedly on the lagoons, and subsequent flights of the web-footed critters arrived regularly, even as large jets passed overhead, and even as a flock of cold-weather-eagle-spotters lurked nearby.

It didn’t take long for one of our flock to see exactly what we’d been looking for.

There, on the other side of Main Street (just look for the big evergreen tree behind Higgins Electric Motor Service) was a huge, majestic eagle.

Binoculars and spotting scopes were aimed and shared. The eagle sat high on a branch, turning its head from time to time, perhaps to pose, but more likely looking for a duck with a limp.

“He’s probably looking for an opportunity for something to eat,” Smith explained, pointing out the eagle’s perch offered him a great vantage point of the duck-filled lagoon. “An injured or unhealthy duck would be easier to catch than a healthy one. He’s probably just resting, but looking for an opportunity to get some breakfast.”

While Smith referred to the eagle as a “he,” he quickly admitted that it’s nearly impossible to tell an eagle’s gender from a distance.

“I can’t tell if that’s a male or a female,” he said. “If I saw [a nesting pair] together, you can tell. The female in most raptor species, and in eagles, is larger than the male.”

And those larger female eagles rule their respective roosts, Smith said.

On another eagle-watching expedition, he saw a mating pair on the Penobscot River ice, sharing a meal.

Perhaps sharing is overstating matters a bit.

“She was doing the eating, and he was wishing he were eating,” Smith said with a chuckle, explaining that every time the male bird moved toward a potential snack, his mate let him know his maneuvers were unappreciated.

The Wastewater Treatment Eagle (that’s not his official name, but it works as well as any other) never did find a suitable snack while we watched Saturday, instead abandoning his (or her) tree to a chorus of exclamations from us eagle-watchers.

Then it was on to a more pristine location where we were guaranteed to find open water … if not eagles.

The Eddington Salmon Club proved equally suitable for hungry eagles, as several ducks fed in an eddy just downstream from the clubhouse.

It didn’t take long for the veteran eagle-watchers to find another bird to appreciate.

An eagle-eyed eagle-eyer pointed across the Penobscot River to the Veazie shore, where he said he had spotted another bird.

Before he could get the rest of us focused on the right spot, another bald eagle swooped in and took up a position at the top of a nearby tree.

Later, what Audubon members said was an immature bald eagle (for the uninitiated, it looked neither bald, nor eagle-like, but I’ll take their word for it … they’re the experts) flew upriver.

Three (or four) eagles in a day isn’t uncommon for Maine, but the relative rarity of the birds makes every sighting special.

There are about 400 nesting pairs in Maine, Audubon volunteer Jim Zeman said, and despite the fact many Mainers see eagles on a daily or weekly basis, many others never get a chance to spot the majestic birds.

“You’d be surprised how many people don’t see eagles,” Zeman said. “Even in the crowd we have today, there are a few people that said the only time they’ve seen eagles is on TV.”

And in the general populous (read: Those who wouldn’t consider going out at 8 a.m. on a 5-degree morning on the off chance that a bird might show up) that percentage is much lower.

“I think there’s maybe 4 or 5 percent of the population that have actually seen eagles in the wild,” Zeman said.

With that thought in mind, I stood back, looked through my binoculars, and peered across the river at the bird in the treetop.

Eventually, it lifted off with a powerful flap of its monstrous wings, and flew in our direction. Necks craned, binoculars were dropped, as the eagle flew over the river, passing within a hundred yards of our position.

“Wow,” one watcher sighed.

“Beautiful,” another cooed.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

John Holyoke can be reached at jholyoke@bangordailynews.net or by calling 990-8214 or 1-800-310-8600.