Along the river

On a recent Sunday morning, my wife and I took a drive along the Housatonic River in search of bald eagles. Ten years ago, spotting eagles along the river would have been possible but rare.  Now it is fairly commonplace.  

We picked up River Road near Housatonic Valley Regional High School in Falls Village and followed it south. It wasn’t long before we spotted our first bird, on the far side of the river. It was a beautiful adult perched far out over the water. It was probably a female because of its size. The female is bigger than the male.  It measures about 36-inches tall versus the male’s 32inches.

The conifer trees in the background still had snow on their branches, accentuating the dark body of the eagle. Bald eagles develop their white head and tail feathers at sexual maturity; usually at about 4 to 5 years of age.

The bald eagle’s scientific name, Haliaeetus leucocephalus, has these roots: a sea or fish (halo) eagle (aeetos) with a white (leukos) head. In Old English, the word “bald†meant “white,†not hairless.

Farther down the river, just before the Covered Bridge we found an immature eagle. Juvenile bald eagles are a mixture of brown and white. Young birds have a black bill as opposed to the yellow bill of the adult. Some people misidentify an immature bald eagle as a golden eagle because of their similar plumage.  Golden eagles are larger on average than bald eagles.  One way to distinguish a golden eagle from an immature bald eagle is leg plumage. A golden eagle’s legs are entirely feather covered while an immature bald eagle’s lower legs are bare.

Past the Covered Bridge, heading south on Route 7, we spotted another adult below the bridge where the river bends.  Generally, the eagles follow food supplies in the winter. As lakes and streams freeze over, bald eagles that breed further north must go south to find open water.   Once an eagle spots a fish near the surface of the water, it glides low to the river and snatches the fish with its strong talons. Eagles can lift up to 4 pounds.  In the unlikely event that the bird ends up in the water, it will swim to shore, dry off then go airborne again. Eagles are actually very strong swimmers.

After arriving in Cornwall Bridge, we went under the cement bridge and continued along River Road and were treated to another adult (maybe a male?) and another immature bird — five bald eagles in all, from the high school to Cornwall Bridge.  What a treat!

Today, there are an estimated 10,000 nesting pairs of bald eagles in the U.S. and Canada. This is truly amazing considering that bald eagles were at the brink of extinction back in the late 1960s because of DDT use, uncontrolled hunting and other hazards. Due to protection strategies such as the Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, and the prohibition of DDT and subsequent reintroduction programs, the eagle population began to rebound.   

On June 28, 2007, the Department of the Interior took the bald eagle off the federal list of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants. And the fruits of these efforts can be seen along our very own Housatonic River.

I encourage you to go out and spot one for yourself. Winter is the best time to see eagles along the Housatonic, and of course the river supports a whole host of other birds and wildlife as well.  

And, if you want to see an eagle up close all year ’round, go to the Sharon Audubon Center where you can meet “Lia†(can you figure out how we came up with the name?) along with 21 other rescued birds that now make the Audubon Center their home.

Scott Heth is the director of Audubon Sharon and can be reached at sheth@audubon.org, (subject line: Nature Notes).