Golden Eagle found home in canyon

When my husband Forrest and I came to our canyon property in Sisters six years ago, we were ecstatic to have discovered such a private, peaceful and beautiful place to live.

There were deer, quail, cliff swallows, hawks, ravens and even wild turkeys regularly visiting our back yard. There were signs of past beaver and otter activity near the creek and wildlife thriving all around us each day.

Yet, nothing prepared us for the sight of a Golden Eagle nest directly across Whychus Creek canyon from our home.

It was spring 2002 when we first saw the Golden Eagle pair that took up residence on the wall of Whychus Canyon. We were hiking along the creek when a sudden burst of activity high on the canyon wall attracted our attention. We trained our binoculars on the site and were thrilled to see an egg right in the middle of a deep, pine branch nest.

Forrest set up a telescope with a video camera eyepiece, and the next two weeks were spent watching and waiting like expectant grandparents. On a drizzly April morning we delighted in the sight of fluffy white down peeking out from under the deep brown feathers of the mother eagle.

Over the next four days we invited neighbors and friends to see the developing fledgling. We named it "Cliff" and shot hundreds of pictures and hours of video tape. Our home movies showed the father eagle bringing in fish, voles, rabbits and squirrels for the hungry mother and chick and the mother tearing off pieces with her strong beak and feeding her baby. We were also able to observe the mother teaching the chick how to tear and chew its food.

I wish I could say that the story ended happily, but on the fifth day the wind proved to be too much for the little guy and he fell out of the nest onto a precarious perch on the side of the canyon wall. We watched with dismay as the chick tried in vain to climb back to safety.

Jim Anderson, a local raptor specialist, was called in to help, but, sadly, he arrived too late. Little Cliff fell during his mother's attempt to bring food to him, her giant russet-colored wings flapping wildly to support her. Ultimately it was her huge golden talons that undermined the nest beneath the chick, and Cliff disappeared from the camera's field of view.

The next year we waited anxiously for the pair to return. Unruly neighbors had moved into a mobile home on the canyon floor of this pristine property, and the sounds of gunshots and snarling dogs often disturbed the calm of our Sunday mornings. Our beautiful canyon sanctuary had been invaded, and we were not surprised when the eagle pair failed to return.

When the neighbors moved away, things settled back into a state of peace and we began to hope that we'd see our beloved eagle family again.

In January of this year, we heard that a developer wanted to buy the land and place several homes on it. From that point on protecting this fragile piece of Whychus Creek became our project and our passion.

We contacted Wolftree Inc., a non-profit group dedicated to site-based science education and put together a plan to purchase this environmentally unique property. Wolftree will use the land as a wildlife and natural resources classroom for Central Oregon students.

We're now in the process of raising funds to buy the property and build the Whychus Creek Discovery Outpost for Education, Stewardship and Research.

Best of all, we are happy to announce that we have a new beaver dam on the creek.

For more information contact Janet Zuelke at 549-6934.