Eagles, eagles and more eagles!

By far, the largest number of phone calls and e-mails I receive throughout the year are about eagles. Lately, the American bald eagle tops the list.

Just the other day, my dear friend Mary Crow sent me an e-mail (and followed up with a bubbling phone call as I was reading it) about four bald eagles hanging out behind her house. That would get anyone excited!

On New Year's Day I received an e-mail, entitled "Eagle finds lunch," with photos, from another good friend, Brent McGregor. He was all pumped up when he drove right up to an immature bald eagle standing in the middle of the road.

Thanks to the supreme effort of Frank Isaacs, of OSU, and his team of Eagle Foundation Volunteers, the Bald Eagle Recovery Plan worked like a charm. We have eagles, eagles and more eagles.

As a consequence, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service de-listed the American bald eagle. As we speak, Frank is in the process of analyzing over 30,000 reports from his volunteers, preparing to write a monograph covering his 30-plus years of bald eagle recovery work in the Pacific Northwest.

Because of Frank's efforts, it is nearly impossible for anyone who is paying attention to drive from Sisters to Redmond this time of year without seeing at least one bald eagle either flying or perched in a tree alongside the road.

The main reason for all these sightings is, of course, food. Mule deer (and elk) are notoriously carefree about frolicking on the highway where cars and trucks zoom by relentlessly. Some are killed instantly when struck. Others stagger off when hit and die back from the road. Few, if any, survive.

Bald eagles are among the most watchful of raptors when it comes to food, especially in winter. Because baldies are gregarious, when one eagle spots a dead deer the signal is sent to another eagle within sight. Then another eagle a mile or so away spots that eagle heading for food and the word spreads along the eagles' wireless. Within a hour there could be as many as 10 bald eagles of all ages congregating on said deer or elk carcass.

Magpies, ravens and woodpeckers also help spread the word. A magpie stands out like a sore thumb as it bounces through the air in that swooping flight. A raven a mile away can see the magpie as easily as we read The Nugget, and being the curious creature it is, heads over to investigate, which in turn, attracts more ravens.

An eagle, also looking for food, sees the ravens heading out with that, "Oh, boy, that's food!" flight style and zooms over to investigate.

In the meantime, a northern flicker or other woodpecker is also watching the magpie, and if there's anything woodpeckers like better than grubs and ants, it's mammal fat. (That's why suet on your feeder is important in winter.)

A bald eagle can't miss flickers, magpies and ravens all headed in the same direction, and before long there's a literal flock of birds descending on the dead deer or elk. Out behind Mary and Jeff's place, we counted 17 ravens, five flickers and four bald eagles; one juvenile and three adults.

However, in the hundreds of e-mails and phone calls I receive about eagles dining on deer and elk, there are the continual errors most people make in the identification of eagles. A lot of people assume those big, brown eagles are golden eagles. In most instances, however, they are immature and juvenile bald eagles.

Young bald eagles are most times brown, with speckled gray, while others may be brown with gray blotches on the body, breast and wing feathers. An adult bald eagle with dark brown body, bright white head and tail is hard to misidentify.