Angel's Wild Cousins

It was a small coincidence that last week when I writing the previous post on Bald Eagles Angel and Harriet  I got a phone call from my farmer neighbor Dick reporting a flock, yes a flock, of Eagles gathered in a picked cornfield along his sons driveway not far from our house.  To say this was unusual would not be an exaggeration in the least. Here’s the story…..

Many decades ago, when Rachel Carson published the book Silent Spring, the Bald Eagle was on the verge of extinction due to the pesticide DDT, across much of the American landscape. In Minnesota, a few survivors hung on in the forested far northern regions of the State.  In the rest of the State they were gone entirely.  The banning of DDT,  the passage of the Endangered Species Act and other environmental protection laws slowly brought the eagle population back from the brink.

Here in Fillmore County, sixty miles west of The Big River eagles historically were only rarely seen migrating through the area and did not nest nor winter here. That has changed in recent years and eagles are now resident and even nesting. Thus Dicks phone call showed how great that change has been. He had deposited several dead raccoons, who had met their fate while tangling with a combine, in the picked cornfield. He suggested I come over and take a look the next day with my camera…..

From the driveway.  Some circling, others hopping and squabbling, most busy eating "raccoon ala carte."

I counted 13 eagles on the ground at the same time while others circled or took breaks in the trees around the farmstead.

And then it began to snow heavily.

 

The American Bald Eagle is back!