Birds of a feather

Harsh winter weather brings more bald eagles into town

By LEE JUILLERAT
H&N Regional Editor

January 19, 2008

Having eagle-eye vision isn’t a requirement to view bald eagles in and near
Klamath Falls .

With the large numbers of bald eagles spending daylight hours searching for meals along the Link and Klamath rivers and Lake Ewauna , they’re hard to miss.

“This year is one of those unique years because the winter is so harsh,” Ralph Opp said while focusing his binoculars on seven eagles sunning on the exposed branches of a willow tree alongside Highway 97 at the Klamath River Bridge .

“The tougher the winter, the more eagles we’re going to see close to town.”

Recent hard freezes have caused eagles, which usually feed on and near the Lower Klamath and Tule Lake national wildlife refuges, to find food sources along open waterways, including those in Klamath Falls . During the winter, bald eagles substitute waterfowl for fish.

“They follow the waterfowl out of the north country,” explained Opp, who moved to Klamath Falls in 1969 while working as a biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. He retired in 1994 but has remained involved in birding.

Opp knows eagles. He helped organize the first eagle census counts in the early 1970s — “We knew bald eagles came into the area. We just didn’t know how many” — and is credited with starting the Klamath Basin Bald Eagle Conference in 1980, the nation’s first birding conference. It has since evolved into the Winter Wings Festival, with this year’s event set for Feb. 15 to 17 at Oregon Institute of Technology.

During the 1980s and 1990s, after they gained protection as an endangered species, Opp sighted upwards of 1,000 bald eagles during several Klamath Basin winters, “which made this the largest concentration in the lower 48 states.” In recent years, he estimates the numbers of eagles wintering in the Basin is between 800 and 900. Most migrate from inland areas of British Columbia and Washington along with Saskatchewan , Idaho and Montana .

Opp made two eagle viewing trips earlier this week, seeing about 80 between the Highway 97 Klamath River bridge and the Link River on Tuesday and another 90-plus Thursday. If the cold weather continues, those numbers could increase because the influx of eagles usually doesn’t peak until February.

“I have seen this situation only a few times over the past 30-plus years I have been intimate with bald eagles,” he said of the easy in-town viewing. “To get this many eagles within a city limits is unique.”

Opp urges people to enjoy the easy eagle viewing, noting, “A lot of people drive right by a don’t even know we have them. If this cold trend continues, we’re going to see more and more. 

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Source:  http://www.heraldandnews.com/articles/2008/01/19/featured_story/

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