# Nodak Bald Eagles



## sierra03 (Jan 27, 2005)

Has anyone else been seeing a lot of bald eagles lately? Our farm is in emmons county away from the river and i have seen many eagles. They actually sit in the trees above our calf lot or they sit on the lake ice. Last week they were picking the mallards out of flocks and bringing them on the ice. today i saw eight of them on the ice. I have never seen eagles like this, it was rare to see one in the past. They are very cool.


----------



## Norm70 (Aug 26, 2005)

havent really seen alot lately but in the spring i see tons of them in dickey/sargent cty. i have a close up pic of 5 of them sitting in a big cottonwood. these last couple yrs i have seen more eagles in the area than i have seen in my whole life. no idea why.


----------



## Nick Roehl (Mar 7, 2002)

I see them here and there along the Red River. One spring though we saw 25 bald eagles sitting on the James River on the ice. They were following the spring snow goose migration. Pretty cool sight.


----------



## sierra03 (Jan 27, 2005)

Maybe thats why i have been seeing them, the big snow goose migration just left the area.


----------



## Dick Monson (Aug 12, 2002)

Chances are they are picking up the wounded waterfowl. I've been seeing them at all the Refuges.


----------



## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

The birds of prey have been coming back strong ever since the ban on DDT. This happened many years ago so perhaps many of you were unaware of it. DDT was a pesticide that concentrated in predators. In birds it didn't kill them, but it affected their metabolism in such a way that they could not assimilate intake of calcium. The eggs they produced had such thin shells that they broke in the nest, or did not protect from bacteria entry. Birds did not die outright, but there was very little reproductive success.

I am 63 years old and seen my first bald eagle when I was about 12. The next bald eagle I seen I was about in my 30's. This deer season I seen at least a dozen on opening week-end. Talking with some older folks in Alaska this summer they noticed the same thing even in Alaska. I was out for an hour Sunday to check the ice and had two bald eagles within 100 yards.


----------



## slough (Oct 12, 2003)

They do definitely follow the waterfowl migration and with the long fall this year they seem to have stuck around longer. I saw 4 of them sitting in a stubble field last week, along with several other singles the last few weeks. I usually take seeing eagles on the prairie as a sign that the big waterfowl migration is going on and is towards the end.


----------



## specialpatrolgroup (Jan 16, 2009)

Ive see quite a few in the area while out fishing, fun to watch then swoop down and fly away wtih a #6 pike in their tallons. I had a small crappie that didnt survive hook removal, I wouldnt have gotten much of a fillet out of it, so I threw it out into the open water and watched one come down out of his dead tree and pick it up about 10' away, fun times.


----------



## Mike J (Dec 12, 2011)

Within a decade we will consider eagles pests.


----------



## Savage260 (Oct 21, 2007)

I have seen a lot more around my area now than I have noticed in the last 8 years. I also saw a few out west when I was hunting. I had never seen any out there in prior years. They are a BIG bird!


----------



## KurtR (May 3, 2008)

I thought this would be about the und name change  i have seen a bunch around mobridge down here to. Why would eagles be considered a pest Mike j? I will gladly let them eat there fill as they have little to no consiquence on the bird populations. Funny how people think hawks/eagles and such have such an effect on the birds which they dont. One of the guys who helps guide pheasant hunters daughter works at a raptor reasearch center and when getting the facts it is amazing what little they take. If you want to worry about some thing ferral cats or farm cats in generall do way more damage than all other predators combined. I have no problem shooting them little bastards if they take one step out of the farm yard. Kind of gives a guy a glimpse of what the settelers saw when out on the praire and hearing a hawk scream while just floating up there. Makes me really love where i live.


----------



## Dick Monson (Aug 12, 2002)

KurtR said:


> I will gladly let them eat there fill as they have little to no consiquence on the bird populations. Funny how people think hawks/eagles and such have such an effect on the birds which they dont. One of the guys who helps guide pheasant hunters daughter works at a raptor reasearch center and when getting the facts it is amazing what little they take. If you want to worry about some thing ferral cats or farm cats in generall do way more damage than all other predators combined. I have no problem shooting them little bastards if they take one step out of the farm yard. Kind of gives a guy a glimpse of what the settelers saw when out on the praire and hearing a hawk scream while just floating up there. Makes me really love where i live.


Absolutely. The eagles pick off the weak and wounded doing everyone a favor. I think coyotes do us a great service picking off the feral cats too. Since coyotes came back you hardly see farm cats out and about anymore. We used to get them coming into the farm all the time but only 1 cat has showed up in the last years.


----------



## coyote_buster (Mar 11, 2007)

had one nesting on the farm, wasnt anything unusual to be within 100 foot of it working when its just sittin on top of the bales


----------

