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In rapture over raptors
  
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By WENDILYN GRASSESCHI, News-Record Writer wgrasseschi@gillettenewsrecord.net
It’s one of those flat, gray Wyoming days more suited to curling up with a good book than driving down a country road looking for birds, even if those birds are bald eagles, those gorgeous icons of America.But it’s 7:30 a.m. and the first cup of coffee hasn’t begun to make a difference yet.
Finally, after a half hour of driving, a black sharp-beaked silhouette appears high in a silver cottonwood tree above a tiny draw filled with cattails. The characteristic hooded, hunch-shouldered shape of the bald eagle is unique, once you know what to look for. This bird is huge, sleek and wary.
It watches the truck with fierce gold eyes, then sweeps up and up into the icy gray morning, its 4-foot wings slow, graceful, powerful.
As it disappears over a ridge, the lost hour of sleep seemed well worth it.
Well worth it.
It’s the morning of the 25th annual national winter bald eagle count and all across America, on this January day, volunteers and wildlife biologists head out to see how many eagles they can find. The numbers will be collected by wildlife managers and used to keep tabs on a bird that only 40 years ago had almost disappeared from the United States.
The culprit then was many things, but a toxic chemical concentrated in the flesh of their principle diet may have done the most damage. The pesticide, called DDT, has since been banned nationwide, but before it was over, the chemical wreaked havoc on bald eagles, thinning their egg shells to the point that few chicks survived.
The lead in lead gunshot was another culprit. Lead shot now is banned as well.
The raptors have since rebounded, but only after intense conservation efforts brought about under the protection of the federal Endangered Species Act.
Wildlife managers are determined not to see that trend reverse; hence the midwinter survey every year, taken when the birds descend from their northern homes in the Arctic and Canada to winter in the United States.
Before the day is over, Fish and Game Wildlife Biologist Heather O’Brien of Campbell County will have covered as much as 100 miles. If she is lucky, this year she’ll see dozens of eagles on her pre-set routes. If not, a scattered few.
It’s easy to feel her affection for the “baldies,” as she calls them. She points out another, this time in a reclaimed mine in central Campbell County, the next stop on the survey route.
“Look, there’s an immature baldie,” she says, as the mottled brown and gold bird lifts off a fence post. She follows it in the truck, hoping for a better look, but the young eagle is not constrained by a road and it isn’t interested in being followed. It disappears all too quickly, winging its way into the warming, brightening day.
She answers the obvious question ” if bald eagles are primarily fish eaters, what on earth are they doing in Campbell County, home of endless prairie and very few fish?
“Years ago, there were a lot more sheep here in the winter and many of the sheep didn’t make it through the winters,” she said. “The baldies figured out there was a consistent food source. Later, when the sheep gave way to cattle, they still kept coming down, even though cattle don’t die off as much as sheep do. So there’s fewer of them, but they still keep coming down.”
The cattle are especially important in the years when rabbit numbers decline. Rabbits typically increase in population for about seven years. Finally, they get so crowded together that disease kills them off and predators used to gorging go hungry for a few years until the rabbits rebound.
As the truck begins the descent into Gillette, she says eagles are one of the bird species that mate for life. They can live up to 25 years, and will return again and again to the huge nests they have built to raise one to three chicks a year, although not all of the chicks will survive.
The females are larger than the males by several pounds.
“The females take on more of the roosting responsibility, so they need to have a larger body mass to wait out time between food,” she said.
A favorite wintertime snack for eagles in the county is road kill. It’s a bad habit that has led to many eagle deaths.
“Baldies are so big, it can take them a while to lift off and get off the ground,” O’Brien said. “Especially after they have gorged themselves on road kill, they can be much slower than an approaching car. I’ve seen birds so full, they can’t get off the ground at all.”
Common places to see the eagles in the county are along the Powder River, and along the creeks and other riparian areas where there are cottonwood trees.
Energy development, habitat fragmentation, power poles, growing cities and mining also present challenges to eagles, but overall, the story of the America’s national symbol is now a story of success.
Well worth a cold drive on a gray, flat Wyoming morning.
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