Eagles overcome great odds, achieve the magnificent

Spring's first buds popped along the thin branches of downtown Iowa City's trees last week. Barring a cold snap, it means the days are limited for seeing Iowa's most spectacular aerial show: Our bald eagles.

Oh, they'll still be around this summer. But once leaves spread out from tree tops and ground shrubs, they're difficult to spot.

It's a good weekend to get over to the Mississippi River, maybe Credit Island Park or the Rock Island Arsenal bridge in the Quad Cities.

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The bald eagle, unique to our hemisphere, is apt for the American experience. Recognizing this, Congress chose it as our national symbol in 1782.

But eagles were not always so admired. Ben Franklin preferred the turkey because eagles scavenged, and this didn't seem fitting for a noble nation.

Meanwhile, the eagle, like immigrants facing poverty, dust storms and unchecked contagions, faced great challenges. Massive logging across the East Coast and Midwest destroyed eagle habitats. Hunters decimated remaining populations in search of plumage, to prevent the raptors from preying on chickens and out of a belief that eagles carried small children away.

After World War II, pesticides took their toll. Winter counts of bald eagles during the 1960s averaged less than 4,000 eagles in the lower 48.

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But like the American movie archetype, the eagle is wildlife's Comeback Kid.

After DDT was banned and an endangered species list was created during the 1970s, the population grew fourteen-fold between the Kennedy and Clinton presidencies.

The Midwest drove much of this increase. More heavily wooded Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan now boast nearly a third of all eagle-nesting pairs in the contiguous United States.

Success there and similar local efforts have caused eagles to spread down the Mississippi River corridor.

And though nesting eagles had disappeared from Iowa during the early 1900s, they now can be found in 54 counties, primarily along rivers. There now are about 130 nesting pairs in the state.

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Eagles particularly like Iowa winters.

Congregating along the Mississippi River, which doesn't freeze over, they have a plentiful supply of gizzard shad and other fish. At the annual Eagle Watch in Clinton, 2,500 eagles can be seen during early January.

When winter is mild, eagles roost more readily on inland rivers and lakes, particularly next to reservoirs where fish get knocked dizzy as water shoots through a dam's gates. Red Rock Lake and the Saylorville Dam particularly see nesting pairs.

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Here's what you'll see at any of those spots: An eagle perched on a bare snag hanging over the water or maybe in a tall dead tree on a point of land. For a long while, it gazes at nothing, and then suddenly the bird swoops over the river.

Soaring upon the wind, its high and broad form magnificently circles overhead. If lucky, you'll catch it playing a game of tag with another eagle as they invert themselves to flash talons at one another.

Then, gliding a hundred feet above icy blue water, the eagle's eyes - sharp enough to read the print of this column from a football field away - glances down.

It dives.

A split second before striking the water, the eagle brakes, wings ablaze, casting a broad shadow over the waves, and the readied talons snatch a fish. In another instant, the eagle jets upward to rejoin the thermals. It circles back to a nest.

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Eagles are creatures of the hearth. Each year, eagle pairs return to the same nest, repairing and expanding it.

In Iowa, the largest eagle nest on record was 10 feet wide, 20 feet deep and weighed two tons. The pair who created it weighed a mere 9 to 16 pounds.

They overcame great odds and achieved the magnificent.

(originally published April 4, 2004)