From the Contact Station March 2022

An Unexpected Sighting

I am coming up on my ninth anniversary of moving to Ridgefield and enjoying the Refuge. In fact, the Refuge is the reason I ended up here in Southwest Washington. A tour or walk on the refuge is always a pleasure, anytime and any weather. But not infrequently, it hands you an experience that will be seared on your memory’s photo album forever. I won’t need to scroll through tons of snapshots on my cell phone, it will instantly come from memory whenever I cross through the same spot again.

It was a Friday morning, February 4^th, and we were doing goose and raptor surveys. We were having a series of dense fog mornings, and although the roads on the ridge above the refuge were quarter-mile visibility, the fog was lifting off the fields on the Refuge, so we had good sightlines for counting. We identify and count geese twice a month and raptors once a month from November to March-April. I was assigned the River S section that morning. I started my count at the hunt gate. It was a rather slow start but there were enough geese, Cackling and Canada species, to keep me occupied. As I came out of the woods at Big Lake on the south end of the tour route, I could hear the call of a Red-shouldered Hawk.  I was having trouble locating it when it flew across the wetlands into the trees beyond Stop 11. As it flew up to land, I had a great look at the red shoulder color across its back and the tail banding. Then I heard it again, but the sound was coming from the wrong car window. There was a second adult just over my head at the end of the woods. Wow, two adults. We have never documented nesting Red-shouldered Hawks on the Refuge, but wouldn’t it be nice to have a pair choose to stay around.

Coming across the dike between Rest Lake and Big Lake, I stopped to scan the fields for flocks of geese and the tree line for perched Red-tailed Hawks or Bald Eagles. I spotted a large raptor in a distant tree that I couldn’t quite get. I used my spotting scope but viewing out the passenger side of the car with a hand-held scope at 60x is not optimum. The raptor was too brownish-goldish to be a Bald Eagle, young or old. I puzzled, “Is it facing me or looking away?” I was thinking I might have to just leave it as an unidentified raptor when it flew. And it was headed right towards me. This is when you wish you were in a convertible. If it were a jet, it would be screaming by. What? That’s a Golden! It swerved into the high grasses of Rest Lake. Up came adult and juvenile Bald Eagles and they were not happy. Lots of vocalizing from the Bald Eagles. The Golden Eagle landed in the wetlands and the Bald Eagles circled low above. They were lost in the grasses for a bit, then up came all three, circling low. Then the Golden Eagle veered straight down the dike road at me, flying maybe ten or so feet off the ground. That will be my forever memory photo. Beautiful, fierce, and determined. It circled back toward the Bald Eagles. The encounter lasted maybe ten minutes after which the Golden Eagle retreated to its distant perch. I drove on smiling.

Looking at e-bird, our Golden Eagle was first noted on January 31^st and a few other times until February 6^th. Sightings are rare here for the Golden Eagle and they tend to be between November and March. We don’t see them every year. E-bird reports seem to be increasing, which may be an indication that more people are looking more closely at what looks like a young Bald Eagle at first glance but could be a Golden Eagle.

Just as we were going to press, on February 25^th, I spotted an adult Golden Eagle in a tree watching over Big Lake near stop 11.  This is not the same bird I spotted earlier in February as that one was a subadult.  Very exciting indeed.  A big thank you to Raptor Survey participants Jeff Fleischer, Mary Rumple and Gretchen Roman for providing the photos from Idaho Raptor Survey routes.

Here is wishing you many memorable moments in your visits to our beautiful Refuge.

Critter Spotlight: Golden Eagle, Aquila chrysaetos

Let’s take a closer look at the life of a Golden Eagle, Aquila chrysaetos. Aquila is Latin for Eagle; chrysos is Greek for golden and aetos is for eagle. They are scattered extensively across the northern hemisphere. In North America, they are most common in the West, especially near open spaces with good habitat for ample prey, near cliffs or trees that supply nesting sites, and topography that creates updrafts essential for flight. Golden Eagles subsist primarily on medium-sized birds and mammals, especially rabbits, hares, ground squirrels, and prairie dogs. They can take larger prey including cranes (oh no), and wild ungulates.

Their nesting territory is about 4900 to 7400 acres depending on habitat quality and prey availability. The number of young produced depends on a combination of weather and prey conditions; usually one to three young per year. The Refuge is 5300 acres +/- for comparison. The breeding range extends far north to the North Slope in Alaska, down to the Aleutians and east to Northeastern Canada. In the western breeding population, it extends south to central Mexico and east to the High Plains. In winter, they vacate the Arctic and northern regions and may be seen in most states. They will move into waterfowl-rich wetlands, both fresh and tidal, for winter feeding.

On average, the Golden eagle is slightly smaller than the Bald Eagle in dimension, but it surpasses it in weight. Their length can be 27 to 40 inches and their wingspan can be 73 to 87 inches. The male’s mass can vary from a little over five pounds up to almost ten pounds, while the bigger female mass varies from 6.7 to 14.2 pounds. Given the range of the measurements, you can easily see a Bald Eagle smaller than a Golden Eagle or visa versa.

Adults, birds greater than five years old, are predominantly dark brown but have faint gray bars on the tail and golden feathers on the rear of the crown, the nape, and the sides of the neck. For birds older than a year, the leading edge of the wing and upper wing coverts are generally paler than the rest of the feathers. The bill is tipped with black, fading to grayish near the base, and the cere (the unfeathered skin joining the forehead and the base of the top mandible) is yellow. Plumage changes as they age from juvenile (0-1 year) to subadult (1-3 years) to adult (> 4 years).

When watching the Golden Eagle in flight, the head does not project more than half the length of the tail. Its long outer secondaries produce a noticeable round bulge, or shallow ‘S’ shape, on the trailing edge of the wing. That edge is straight for Bald Eagle. The wing beat is somewhat shallow and is held in a slight dihedral when soaring, not flat like the Bald Eagle.

The Golden Eagle may be the most numerous large eagle in the world. Recent studies indicate some eagle populations are stable or even increasing, but there continue to be human activities that threaten these populations. Urbanization, construction of energy production and transmission infrastructure, agricultural development, and wildfires encroach on many traditional foraging and nesting habitats. As with many species, the health of Golden Eagle populations needs watching.

Fun Fact: We often wonder at the speed of a Peregrine Falcon, but did you know that a Golden Eagle can hit 200 mph? They can be very fast and maneuverable. A normal soaring speed is about 28-32 mph. I once clocked a young Golden Eagle flying about 25 feet off the ground and parallel to a country road I was on. We hit 45 mph together! When they are hunting, they can glide at speeds up to 120 mph. When diving (or stooping) for prey, they reach speeds of 150 – 200 mph. The Golden Eagle is the second fastest flying bird in the world.

-Susan Setterberg, Contact Station Volunteer