Bald eagles! January and February are popular months for eagle watching along the Mississippi River, as the birds congregate near open water along the river where the fishing is easy. In this episode, I go deep into the lives of bald eagles with Ed Hahn, Director of Marketing and Communications at the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, Minnesota. Got a question about the lives of bald eagles? We probably answer it in this episode, from the challenges faced by fledglings to the solitary lives of adults. Ed describes the acrobatic ways that eagles choose a mate, as well as how (and why) they build their massive nests. We cover how they bounced back from near extinction and some of the threats that they still face today, and so much more!
Show Notes
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Transcript
Wed, Jan 25, 2023 9:07AM • 1:12:05
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
eagles, bald eagles, nest, people, winter, feathers, nesting season, birds, year, mississippi river, center, river, ddt, tree, places, golden eagles, find, typically, fish, national
SPEAKERS
Dean Klinkenberg, Ed Hahn
Ed Hahn 00:00
Eagles are very much solitary creatures and outside of nesting season, they live on their own.
Dean Klinkenberg 00:29
Welcome to the Mississippi Valley traveler Podcast. I’m Dean Klinkenberg, and I’ve been exploring the deep history and rich culture of the people in places along America’s greatest river, the Mississippi, since 2007. Join me on this podcast as I go deep into the characters and places along the river, and occasionally wander into other stories from the Midwest and other rivers. Subscribe to the series on your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss out on future episodes. You’ll find the show notes at MississippiValleyTraveler.com/podcast. And while you’re there, take some time to explore the rest of the website. You’ll find a lot of stuff about the Mississippi River, and you can even download some free content. And now on to the show. Welcome to Episode 12 of the Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast. We’re back after a short break. And now it’s January 2023, as I record this, and we are right in the middle of peak eagle season, at least when it comes to eagle-themed events along the Mississippi River. So naturally in this episode, we’re gonna go deep into bald eagles with Edie Hahn from the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, Minnesota. We talk about the lives and habits of bald eagles, from hatching through their lifespan, including how old they are when they get booted out of the nest, how they build those massive nests, what they like to eat, their amazing vision, how they bounced back from the endangered species list, and some of the threats they continue to face today, and of course, a heck of a lot more than that. Ed knows so much about eagles, and he has a great talent for explaining it all clearly. My thanks to all of you who continue to show some love through Patreon. And here’s a hat tip to a new supporter, Stephanie Arntzen Strote. And now let’s get on with the interview. Well, it’s a new year and a new round of podcasts. And I’m very excited to kick off 2023 by talking about bald eagles. And I’m here today with Ed Hahn, who is the Director of Marketing and Communications at the National Eagle Center in Washington, Minnesota. Edie, welcome to the podcast.
Ed Hahn 02:49
Pleasure to be here, Dean. Thanks for having me.
Dean Klinkenberg 02:52
So tell us a little bit about how you got involved with working with eagles at the National Eagle Center.
Ed Hahn 03:00
Yeah, so it’s kind of a maybe an interesting story. I don’t know. Yeah, my educational background is actually in public relations and electronic media. And I had been working at a job, I was doing marketing for a manufacturer, and it came time to look for a change in my career. And ironically, I had never been to the National Eagle Center before I interviewed there even though I only lived 30 miles away in Winona. And yeah, I just got a lead to go check it out. They were looking for a new marketing manager. And so I went up there had an awesome interview, really liked the organization what I saw and seven and a half years later here I am the Director of Marketing and Communications. So yeah, no formal background, which a lot of times surprises people that, you know, I didn’t go to school to work with animals or eagles or have any kind of that ornothological background at all. But that in a way that kind of describes our team too, because outside of the people who actually work with the eagles every single day, you know, caring for them and educating with them, a lot of our staff really don’t have a background dealing with wildlife.
Dean Klinkenberg 04:18
So this has been kind of on the job training for you, at least when it comes to learning and talking about eagles.
Ed Hahn 04:23
Absolutely, but it has been just an awesome ride. It’s so fun.
Dean Klinkenberg 04:29
Well, I’m excited to talk to you then, picking your brain about what you’ve learned about eagles in that time. This is the time of year when I think the Facebook Mississippi River photos page is full of pictures of eagles. We have lots of eagle festivals going on along the Mississippi. So it’s it seems like this is the time of year when people really notice and think about the birds. So let’s kind of get into a little bit about what we know about their lives and their lifespans. Tell me a little bit first of all about the rangem like where do we typically find bald eagles? Where do they live? And what kinds of habitats do they prefer to live in?
Ed Hahn 05:11
So bald eagles are one of the two native species of eagle that we have here in North America, along with the golden eagle. But unlike the golden eagle, you will find bald eagles really across the entire continent. Golden eagles tend to be a little more particular about where they live. In the United States, a lot of people in the eastern part of the country have never seen a golden eagle, because they’re typically found west of the Mississippi River or even west of the Missouri River. So they’re more of an upland arid habitat, terrestrial hunter. They’re not really fish eaters, like bald eagles are, and so you won’t find them across the entire continent. The bald eagles, you will find them from the Florida coast all the way up to Alaska, on the Pacific coast as well. So they have a very good distribution, pretty huge range. But they are only found in North America, whereas the golden eagle is actually found around the world in the northern hemisphere. So they actually have a very large global range, whereas the bald eagle is exclusive to North America.
Dean Klinkenberg 06:21
So for bald eagles, as I understand it, they tend to prefer areas close to water that are forested, correct? In contrast to golden eagles, that it sounds like prefer different kinds of settings.
Ed Hahn 06:34
Yeah, you know, the states that have the highest bald eagle populations, Alaska by far, number one, and Minnesota is number two. Number three is always kind of a surprise to people when we play that guessing game, but it is Florida. And the thing that they all have in common is that they all have abundant water. And so bald eagles are part of what is called the fish eagle or sea eagle family in the eagle world. And that means they are hunting and feeding primarily on fish. And so wherever you have areas that are going to have lots of typically shallow water, you know, rivers or lakes, or in the case of Alaska and Florida, you have a lot of coastline, those are going to be places where you’re typically going to find pretty strong bald eagle populations because of the abundance of fish. You also mentioned forested areas, they certainly are found there as well. And as the population continues to recover, and continues to grow, we certainly find them pushing into areas that maybe they haven’t been seen in several decades since before you know they were endangered. But it really has to do with the proximity to water. And then as far as nesting is concerned, they want to be looking for tall, strong, sturdy trees. And so you do have different types of tree species that are favored by bald eagles for nesting. As you move through different parts of North America, you know, down south, you might have things like sycamore trees that that will typically have those nests in them, whereas here they really like cottonwoods. They like white pines up in northern Minnesota, and, of course, you have all sorts of pines and coniferous trees up in Alaska. So yes, they will absolutely be found in forested areas. But again, that common denominator is going to be is there water nearby? They do eat other things than just fish. But that’s about three quarters of their diet, typically. And so that’s going to be where they want to be.
Dean Klinkenberg 08:33
All right. So we may see some bald eagles, I was thinking about like along the Missouri River, there are vast areas of plains without very many trees, maybe a few more golden eagles than bald eagles out there? And if there are bald eagles, then they’re probably not really nesting if they don’t have tall trees or something like that to nest in. Would that make sense?
Ed Hahn 08:54
Yeah, I mean, it’s yeah, the logic follows. You know, we do know that every state in the union, except Hawaii does have at least one pair of nesting bald eagles. So you do find them in all the states, you will find them down in the desert southwest, you will find them, like I said, down in Florida along the Gulf Coast, certainly. And we certainly have them here in the Midwest and even in the Rockies. So the distribution is good. You know, we do have, there’s different amounts of water throughout the United States in North America. But like I said before, you know, they’re pretty well distributed throughout the continent. But yeah, you do tend to find different concentrations in different parts of the country. The upper Midwest, you know, where the Mississippi River is a huge draw for them, certainly the Great Lakes. So places like Wisconsin, Minnesota, even Michigan, all have very good populations of bald eagles, but you do find them even in the desert parts of the country as well. Whereas as I said before, you know the golden eagles they tend to be more found out in the Mountain West, desert Southwest, and only seasonally here in the upper Midwest. So do we consider them migratory? Like I know like at this time of year, they will, some of them will move a little further south along the Mississippi in search of open water. Can you talk a little bit about that? Like, do they tend to stay put in one place year round? Does it vary depending upon the climate? Yeah, it does depend on the climate. It really has to do with, you know, are you getting cut off from that water in the wintertime? If you’re down on the Gulf Coast in Florida, it’s probably not going to freeze, at least not for very long if it does. And so those, yeah, those birds, southern eagles, typically they’re not leaving their nesting territory in the winter seasons. What we see up here in the northern part of the United States and up into Canada, is that yes, you do have eagles that will migrate south. But what we always tell our guests and audiences are the migration that you see with bald eagles is really a somewhat different phenomenon than what you would see with songbirds. You have, you know, hundreds of species of birds that every year, no matter what, when the length of the day has changed, that’s going to be the trigger to them that it’s time to head south, whether they’re going to Central or South America, or just down to the Gulf Coast or whatever. Bald eagles, when they migrate, they’re only going to move as far as they have to until they find a suitable food source. So you may have, you know, winter rolls around, everything starts to freeze over up in northern Minnesota, you may have an eagle that’s, you know, nesting up by Hibbing, during the summer months, and it will come down to the Wabasha area and the Upper Mississippi River. But as soon as it finds some open water, or some other source of food, it’s probably going to sit down, you know, it’s going to settle there. And that’s where it’s going to spend the winter months. It might move around a little bit depending on conditions, but it’s not going to go all the way down to say the Gulf Coast or down into, you know, Missouri or Arkansas or places like that along the river. So really, I would say, in general, because of the features of the Mississippi River, there’s lots of locations, especially along the locks and dams that maintain open pools of water, even in the you know, the most extreme parts of winter. That’s where you get a lot of people seeing those eagle congregations. And that typically is from I would say Red Wing, in Minnesota, down to probably the Iowa-Missouri border. You have places like Coralville, Iowa, Fulton, Illinois, that just have really good eagle viewing in the winter, same as it is up here by Red Wing or Wabasha or Winona. And again, it just has to do with the features of the river. There are times when you know, either a blizzard will move through and maybe they’re already on migration, then that can cause them to go further south than they might normally. We kind of saw that this year a little bit. We had really high numbers on our weekly counts just before Christmas, then that blizzard hit. And then all of a sudden, what do you know, a week later down in Iowa–Hey, there’s amazing viewing going on there. So you know, weather events like that might push them a little bit. But in general, yeah, they’re gonna find a place that has that open water in the winter. They’re going to settle down there. And that’s why we see those huge influxes of bald eagles for winter viewing here in the Upper Mississippi River Valley.
Dean Klinkenberg 13:37
I’m in St. Louis. And I know for us, like the number of eagles we see really does seem to vary as a function of how severe the weather is, the winters are further north. So if the weather is cold, especially cold and the rivers freezing over pretty solid north of here, then we’ll get a lot of eagles this far south. But for milder winters, our eagle numbers will be relatively low. So that’s really just driven by the ability of the eagles to have find that open water so they can catch some fish.
Ed Hahn 14:06
Exactly. Yep.
Dean Klinkenberg 14:08
So this is something that I was just thinking about recently with birds in general. I’m not sure if you know the answer to this, but how do they stay warm during the colder months of the year? Like any idea like how they they manage that?
Ed Hahn 14:22
Yeah, so you know, in the case of bald eagles, they are pretty much designed to weather winter with no problem. Again, you get a lot of songbirds, they’re heading south not only because they get cut off from their food supply, but they’re just not built to weather those severe winters. Bald eagles, on the other hand, they are very much ready to take on what winter throws at them. And that really has to do with a couple of things. One, they are covered in over 7000 individual feathers on their bodies. Now the majority of those are going to be in those downy feathers that you really don’t even see, you know, A lot of times when you see a bald eagle perched in a tree or out on the ice or flying, what you see is really that outer layer of feathers. And those can either be the flight feathers, which are on their wings, and those are actually the feathers that allow them to fly. And you also have contour feathers, those are the feathers that really give the eagle its shape. But underneath all of those, you have these really small fluffy white downy feathers. And those are excellent at trapping pockets of air next to their body. So it’s essentially they’re wearing a feather jacket all the time, which in the summer, when it’s hot, okay, that can, you know, really play against them. And you know, they’re going to be spending some time taking dips in the water or, you know, opening up their feathers and puffing out their feathers and wings in the summer to release that heat. But in the winter, they’re really designed to withstand it, to go along with that their core body temperature is about 106 degrees Fahrenheit. So you know, almost eight degrees warmer than humans are. So you put that together and the fact that they are able to trap all that under those feathers, not a problem for them. And so even you know, in this time, and well, typically this time of the year, we’d be in the coldest weeks of the year, but right now it’s not too bad, but it might be 20 degrees below zero. And there, you’re just going to see them perched up in a tree. They’re going to be puffed up a little bit, but as long as they have access to fish or food somewhere, they are perfectly content.
Dean Klinkenberg 16:29
So really, it’s those Florida eagles that might suffer a little bit more with the heat.
Ed Hahn 16:34
Well, yeah. And so one of the ambassadors that we have at the National Eagle Center, Was’ aka, he’s actually originally from Florida. And he’s a small male. He’s only about six pounds compared to our two female ambassadors who are from northern Wisconsin. They’re basically double his size in bodyweight. And so we like to put them outside, we have an outdoor weathering yard where they can spend time outside and the weather, get some fresh air, things like that. And then in the winter time, he’s the one that’s not as keen on spending a lot of time outside, as opposed to those those bigger females.
Dean Klinkenberg 17:11
Yeah, I can relate to that. Like I probably would rather winter in Florida than in Minnesota, but I have spent a fair amount of time wintering in Minnesota. So, well, let’s talk a little bit about their lifespans, then. First of all, like ballpark, do we have an idea about the typical life expectancy for bald eagles in the wild?
Ed Hahn 17:31
Yeah, absolutely. Typically, you know, the hardest part of an eagle’s life is going to be from when they hatch to when they attain sexual maturity. That can vary a little bit by each individual, but typically, they’re going to be sexually mature and have attained that white head and tail, their adult plumage, between the ages of four and six. Leading up to that point, there’s typically a very natural high attrition rate for young eagles. And it’s because they have to master their flying skills, their hunting skills, their general survival skills in a very short period of time, because once they leave the nest, mom and dad aren’t going to cater to them anymore. They’re not going to be looking after them or helping them out in any way. And so, you know, a lot of times the very first winter that a young eagle will have to get through, that’s really probably the toughest year on them, of all of them. And sometimes you see natural attrition rates of 50% from a hatch, you’re just getting through that first year. The general number is around 20 to 25% of all eagles will survive to adulthood. And if they reach that milestone, then they can expect to live about 20 to 25 years on average. Now, what’s interesting to note is, you know, the eagles that we have in our care at the National Eagle Center, they have really been in human care since you know, the first or second years of their lives. And they do have a much higher quality of life. They just they don’t have to deal with the stresses that wild eagles have to deal with, you know. They get fed every day. They get veterinary care. They’re in climate controlled conditions. So those things don’t factor into their life. And we could potentially see them living into their late 30s or early 40s. So in human care, you could double their lifespan. But yeah, 20 to 25 years is a pretty pretty solid life for a bald eagle out in the wild.
Dean Klinkenberg 19:36
So how long is the period of time, how long does it typically take from the time they hatch until they have the ability to fly?
Ed Hahn 19:44
Yeah, so that’s an excellent question. They grow very, very fast. Once they hatch, you know, they’re, they’ll lay the eggs and they’ll immediately start incubating them in the nest. And about 35 days later, those eggs will hatch and then those chicks will be as large as their parents in 12 weeks. They will attain their adult size in 12 weeks, between 12 and 15 weeks is generally when those eagles will then become fledglings. They’ll take that first flight out of the nest, whether by accident or on purpose. And at that point, the clock starts ticking because once they take that first flight, that’s a signal to the parents that okay, you know, nesting season is over. So once they take that first flight, the mom and dad may stick around for a couple of more weeks. They may, you know, kind of coax the young ones out of the nest a little bit more, try to get them to fish or hunt on their own. But eventually, they’re just going to leave them to fend for themselves. So you know, if we have nesting season in this part of the country, I would say your earliest nesters are usually on nest by mid-February, which is pretty early; most bald eagles in this part of North America are going to be on nest in earnest by early- to mid-March. So you have eagles hatching in April, and by mid- to late-August, nesting season is pretty much over.
Dean Klinkenberg 21:20
Would that be the same in Florida as it is in Minnesota? That timeline?
Ed Hahn 21:25
Yeah, so the timeline is more or less the same for all bald eagles. The only thing that changes is when do they start nesting. And nesting is really triggered by the amount of daylight they have. It’s a, it’s a photo effect. It’s a photo signal from the sunlight. And so the days are getting longer and brighter in the south earlier than they are in the north. So you already have eagles that have been on nest for several weeks now down in Florida and along the Gulf Coast, whereas we’re not quite there yet in this part of the country. And we’re still a few months away for eagles up in Canada and Alaska.
Dean Klinkenberg 22:06
So that’s kind of it’s interesting. It’s almost, it’s kind of crazy that, you know, as soon as they’re capable of moving about on their own, their parents are like, get out, you’re on your own now! Go fend for yourself!
Ed Hahn 22:18
Yep.
Dean Klinkenberg 22:18
That’s why there’s such a high mortality rate, I guess during the time? Are they dying mostly because they’re not successfully feeding themselves? Are they being attacked by predators or whatever threats they face?
Ed Hahn 22:33
Yeah, so out in the wild, and it’s actually kind of the same phenomenon both for old bald eagles and those young juvenile bald eagles, is that the common cause of death is going to be starvation. With young bald eagles, it’s going to be, okay they haven’t mastered those skills that they need to fast enough. And so unless they can scavenge off of something or scrounge around, they’re probably going to starve to death. Now, the other factor is in places like this part of the country where you have these large gatherings of eagles during the winter, you also have a lot of competition. Eagles definitely are not about sharing with each other. They’re very solitary birds. They’re not very social birds. And so if you ever spend time in the winter, watching eagles out on those ice sheets on the river, or a lake, you know, somebody finds a fish, and everybody’s scrumming to see who can end up with that fish, and you know, fill their gullet first. So again, not only do young eagles have to contend with, I need to figure out how to catch my food and support myself, but now in the winter, if there’s all these other established adults around, and they catch a fish–good for you, now, you’ve got to defend that against all these other eagles that would steal it from you without hesitation. The same thing is true for old eagles, because there comes a point in their lives when, you know, they’re weaker, you know. They may not be as agile or dexterous as they used to be. And so they become easy pickins, easy targets for those other eagles to come and steal their food. And so for a lot of old bald eagles, that’s going to be the ultimate cause of death is they’re going to starve because they can’t, they might not be able to, you know, hunt for themselves. But now they can’t defend their food. And so that’s ultimately going to do them in.
Dean Klinkenberg 24:23
So they spend, I guess the first four to six years of their lives basically mastering this process of survival. Right?
Ed Hahn 24:32
Correct.
Dean Klinkenberg 24:33
And they’re on their own that whole time, right? They haven’t paired up with any any other eagles at that age. Where are they, do they build a nest for themselves during that time? Are they just hopping around and sleeping on people’s couches like a couchsurfing kind of thing? Where do they live during that time?
Ed Hahn 24:51
More the latter than the former? Yes. So until until they’re sexually mature and gaining that white head and tail that’s actually the outward sign to the rest of the bald eagle population that, okay, I am a mature adult, I am ready to start raising young. And that’s the time at which they will, you know, look to pair up with another eagle to start a nest or take over an abandoned nest, whatever it may be. But until that time, yeah, they’re basically, you know, just traveling around. They’re very nomadic. They don’t have an established nest territory that they have to be concerned with. And so you know, they may stay close to where they were hatched, or they may travel several hundred or even a couple thousand miles across the continent. They really have nothing tying them to any specific location. But what is interesting is that the research continually shows that once they do reach sexual maturity, most eagles will return to within a hundred miles of the nest they were hatched in to start their own first nest.
Dean Klinkenberg 25:55
That’s fascinating. Do we have any idea how they know that, how they navigate back to there? That’s just still a mystery?
Ed Hahn 26:02
I have no idea how they do that. Nature finds a way I guess. But it is yeah, it’s a very interesting phenomenon.
Dean Klinkenberg 26:11
Wow. So how do they, what’s the process like them for selecting a partner for pairing up?
Ed Hahn 26:19
Yeah, that’s a great question. So you know, if you’re ever fortunate enough to see what is referred to as eagle cartwheeling, which is just an awesome aerial display of acrobatics. I have seen… again, I’ve been working in the eagle world now for seven and a half years, and I think I’ve seen it twice for a grand total of about three and a half seconds. It can happen very fast. And I’d really like to just with my own eyes see a really good long display of cartwheeling, but, but that’s going to be one of the big tests. We among our staff and educators, we refer to it as kind of extreme dating, not extreme mating. That’s one kind of common misconception that a lot of people have is that eagles mate in flight. They don’t mate in flight. They either mate in the nest or on a branch, or I’ve even seen it on the ground. But they don’t do it in flight. What you’re seeing in flight is really hypothesized to be they are testing potential mates for their suitability both to you know, provide for the young, and also to show that they are capable of defending the nest, defending the young. And so if you’re doing this, this cartwheel display, that is actually a very dangerous maneuver for them to engage in, because what they’re doing is they’re flying very high up into the air, that pair of eagles are locking talons. And by doing that, they’re kind of losing their aerodynamic, you know, shape and form and ability to fly. And suddenly they start tumbling through the air very violently and quickly back towards the Earth. Now, if everything goes correctly, they will both hold on until kind of the last moment. They’ll release, they’ll separate and maybe they go up and do it a few more times. There are times and documented occasions where they don’t let go and plummet into the ground. And that can result in death or injury. But again, if you’re an eagle, that letting go too early, okay, you may be signaling to that potential mate that man, right, you don’t have what it takes. If you do it the right amount of time, okay, you’re probably good for the job, you know? We’ll try it again, see what happens. And you know, they may select each other and then go to the nest site and either build a whole new nest, or what is also very common is that, you know, eagles may abandon the nest for any variety of reasons. And if the tree is still stable, and the nest is still suitable, they may take it over and make it their own and just add more materials to that nest. So yes, it’s… and there can be other things too, you know. There can be displays, bringing items back to the nest site. Again, that would signal to a potential mate: Hey, I’m good at finding things. I’m a good forger. So these are all kind of displays that they do for each other to show that they are capable of being good providers.
Dean Klinkenberg 29:17
Well, that’s a pretty good task if you can, you know lock talons while falling through the air without killing each other, without panicking or leaving too early, That’s an interesting way to test your potential mate. So when they, when they pair up, then they there for life essentially correct?
Ed Hahn 29:41
That is a, it’s a common, it might be one of the most common questions we get, and the answer is somewhat complicated. Most–maybe you shouldn’t even say most–but many bald eagle pairs will pair up with each other for many years in succession, unless something happens, like if there’s a catastrophic event at the nest site, you know. Maybe another eagle comes in and, and, you know, destroys the eggs or kills the young, or maybe a storm comes through and knocks the nest down and all the young don’t survive. That would be a catastrophic event. And in events like that, the chances are pretty good that that pair will break up. They won’t pair up again, and they’ll both abandon the nest site. But so long as they both survived the offseason, they both returned to the nest site and they have success raising the young without incident, the chances are very high that they will continually pair up with each other year after year after year. So I would say it’s common, but it is not the rule. You know, if one of those pair dies during the offseason, or something else like that happens, or they don’t return for whatever reason, the remaining eagle will not hesitate to take a new mate.
Dean Klinkenberg 31:00
All right. So after their fledglings have been kicked out of the house, will they, will that pair stay together during the winter months? Do they kind of go their separate ways and come back together to produce more offspring in the in the late winter, early spring? How does that work?
Ed Hahn 31:23
Yeah, you get a little bit of both. Again, they’re not using the nest. Eagles don’t live in nests outside of nesting season. So you know, this time of the year, or even in the fall, you don’t see eagles really living in the nest, because they’re not raising young. So at night, you know, they’re just finding a nice comfy branch somewhere in a nice protected location. And that’s how they’re sleeping. So yeah, outside of nesting season, they may choose to stay in, you know, in and around the nesting territory, but they don’t have to. And that certainly applies to those migratory eagles that we talked about earlier. You know, again, if you’re nesting up in Canada, but all your your water sources are cut off during the winter, you’re obviously not going to stick around, you’re going to move out. So yeah, once spring comes around, again, once they get those photo triggers from the sun, the amount of daylight and the days that will trigger them to then head back to the nesting territories. For the eagles that we have here in the Upper Mississippi River Valley, I would say most of them, you know, they’re, they don’t have a need to migrate because there’s again, pockets of open water throughout the winter on the river. So they’re probably going to stay, you know, nearby the nest site, even though they aren’t using the nest. They may or may not, you know, spend time together in that same territory. But I wouldn’t describe it as they are living together, at least not in the same sense that they are when they’re both raising the young together. I think in the wintertime, it’s more just–hey, you know, we don’t have a reason to leave this territory, but I’m doing my own thing. You’re doing your own thing. And okay, when spring comes back around, yep, we’ll both head back to the nest and, we’ll go through everything again, and do it all over again. So yeah, you get a little bit of variability in the wintertime and outside of nesting season. There’s just not a, I wouldn’t say a definite rule to how eagles spend their time. It’s if you need to migrate, you migrate, if everything is, you have everything you want, you need at the nest territory, okay, you’re probably going to stick around. And so yeah, it’s kind of a spectrum, but you get a little bit of everything.
Dean Klinkenberg 33:34
I guess if it’s more advantageous for them to stick together, you know, for their mutual survival, they may do a little bit of that, but, you know, if they’re better off off on their own foraging for themselves, then maybe there’s no issue with splitting up and you know, and looking out for themselves.
Ed Hahn 33:50
Yeah, and you, you do see that, I mean, we get a lot of photo submissions at the National Eagle Center that we share on our social media, where people will see, you know, the pairs outside of nesting season, you know, around the nest. Now, one thing that we do know that happens, again because so much of an eagle’s life, you know, the triggers are what are the lengths of the days. We do know that in the fall, you will get what’s called the false nesting trigger. And so you have a period in the fall where, when the days are getting shorter, the lengths of the days are the same length as they would be in late winter when the days are getting longer. And that can cause this confusion for eagles, which gives them a false nesting trigger. So mid- to late fall, it is not uncommon to see eagles at the nest site, you know, bringing materials to it, doing improvements, but it doesn’t last more than maybe a week or so. And then again, that activity will die down for the rest of the winter until you get the true nesting season in mid- to late winter. But other than that, yeah, they just you know, it’s the, I like to call it the offseason. They don’t really have responsibilities other than to themselves. And they live a very solitary life again, you know. It’s not like songbirds that we’re very familiar with that live in flocks, you know. You’ll see tons of them together in a tree or, you know, on a power line. Eagles are very much solitary creatures, and outside of nesting season, they live on their own.
Dean Klinkenberg 35:23
Wow. All right. So I guess that seems like that’s probably a fairly common characteristic of raptors in general.
Ed Hahn 35:28
Yes, I think that is true, you do have some species of raptors around the world, and there’s only one that I’m familiar with in North America, and that is the Harris Hawk that are communal hunters, that will actually hunt as a group together to catch prey. But yeah, for the most part, you know, when you’re not raising young, you’re just kind of off doing your own thing.
Dean Klinkenberg 35:57
So let’s talk about those nests for just a minute. They are massive. Can you just describe a little bit about how big they can get and what do they use to build those nests?
Ed Hahn 36:10
Yeah, so that’s a great question. And, you know, as far as engineering feats in nature are concerned, I would say eagle nests are right up there with some of the most impressive. You know, let’s take an example of let’s say, we have a nest, you know, the trio nests that a lot of people are familiar with down in Illinois, near Fulton, Illinois. You know, those eagles, they’re going to come together, and if they’re building a nest from scratch, they’re going to find a nice, tall, sturdy tree. And in this part of the country, on the river, you know, those tend to be cottonwood trees. And they’re gonna find a nice sturdy spot, it might be out on the out on a limb, it may be at a crotch of the tree where you know, different limbs are coming off, and they will start bringing in sticks, and how they do this, I don’t know. But they will start to weave those sticks together. You know, they’ll start with some pretty sizable sticks, and they might get some little twigs in there, but they’re gonna basically create this, this bowl shape, that is woven sticks. And then on the interior of the nest, they’re going to start to bring in some softer materials to create the nest bowl, and to really pad it. So you might bring in grasses, moss, things like that, leaves, they’re going to create kind of a soft nest bowl. Now, we call it the nest bowl, but really, they are creating a flat floor. It might have a little bit of a dip to it. But what you don’t want to have is a mound, and I’ll come back to that in a little bit. But you want to have a flat surface so that when you lay the eggs, they aren’t rolling away during incubation. And so one of the reasons, or I shouldn’t say one of the reasons, the primary reason that a bald eagle nest gets so big over the course of their lives, is that every year that pair of eagles comes back to that nest or another pair of eagles comes in to take it over every year, they’re going to add material to it. And they’re going to create a new floor to that nest. And it goes back to what I was saying about the mound during nesting season, you know. They’re bringing back food to the young. The young are creating waste, whatever. So at the end of a nesting season, you now have a lot of junk that has built up in the nest bowl, and it’s starting to create a mound. And again, you come back the next year, you don’t want to try to lay eggs on that mound, because they’re going to roll all over everything. And you want to kind of keep them together in the center for incubation. So every year they come back to that nest, they have the existing structure, and then they’re gonna come and they might add a foot or two of new material to the top of it. So now, you know the diameter of your nest is getting wider. The nest is getting taller as they add a new floor to that nest. And you know, if you have a nest that’s now been used for 10, 12, 15 years, they start to get massive. Now, I’m betting that most people probably haven’t had the opportunity to actually look down into a nest with their own two eyes. Maybe they watch a nest cam so that you know they’ve seen that view. But what you need to remember is that, let’s say you have a nest that’s, you know, six, seven feet tall. The eggs, when they’re laid are at the top of that nest. There’s really just a lip of sticks around that nest. They’re not going all the way down into the bottom. And so everything below that floor is solid material. So now, not only is it a physically big nest, but it’s a very heavy structure because it’s just all that waste material. It’s built up over the previous years. And that’s why eventually the fate of every nest is going to be that tree is going to collapse under the weight. You know, maybe it takes a long time but, you know, eventually the tree is going to die. The wood is going to start to rot. Maybe a wind comes along a storm or whatever, but a branch is going to snap and the nest is going to fall out. So that’s kind of the lifespan of the nest. But until it gets to that point, they get bigger and bigger and bigger, and they get heavier and heavier and heavier. And the stat we’d like to throw out at the National Eagle Center is the world record bald eagle nest was found down near St. Petersburg, Florida. It was nine feet in diameter, 20 feet tall, and weighed just shy of three tons. So that’s a lot of building material. Right?
Dean Klinkenberg 40:35
What kind of tree was that nest in?
Ed Hahn 40:38
You know, I don’t know what type of tree it was. It might have been a sycamore or something like that. But yeah, ultimately, that tree collapsed. And so yeah, that was that was the fate of that nest. And I think you know, what happened is, you know, the nest, the tree collapsed, the nest collapsed. So I think the researchers came down, and then kind of looked at, okay, what all of this material was actually in the nest and they worked it backwards. They probably had photos of it before it collapsed. So they knew what the dimensions were, but then they could actually estimate okay, how much weight of material was in that nest?
Dean Klinkenberg 41:10
Wow. Yeah, well, I guess there in different seasons of year, you know, when there are opportunities to look at eagles or watch eagles. One of the advantages about being out in the woods this time of year, of course, is there are no leaves, so it’s a lot easier to spot those big nests than it would be in the summertime. I can think of a couple of places not too far from me where there are big nests that I can spy really easily now. So let’s let’s talk just briefly about the remarkable comeback of eagles, as they were endangered. I guess they’re probably still technically listed on the endangered species list?
Ed Hahn 41:49
No, they are not. They came off in 2007, thankfully, yep.
Dean Klinkenberg 41:54
So we nearly lost them, mostly because of DDT, which made the eggshells really thin and basically killed their ability to reproduce, right? So banning DDT, and was it mostly just banning DDT or were there other efforts that we undertook to help bring back the populations as well?
Ed Hahn 42:20
Yeah, I think to answer that question, yeah, it was mostly DDT. There are other ongoing threats that we know of that, you know, it’s just about educating people and really getting people to understand, you know, what are the dangers to eagles. How do we conserve them habitat wise, and we can come back to that in a minute. But yeah, DDT was really the key factor in they’re almost near extinction. And you know, what was particularly troublesome with DDT was that it was really a silent killer. It was a pesticide. It was very good at controlling insect populations. You know, it’s credited with playing a big role in World War two in the Pacific, because they used it to control malaria outbreaks because they could control mosquitoes and other disease-bearing insects. The problem with DDT with bald eagles is that it wasn’t just poisoning them outright. It’s not like oh, you pour this chemical into a lake and all the fish die, or all the birds get poisoned and just drop dead. What was happening was, and you had this exactly right, essentially, they call it a bio magnifier. And so what happens is you put DDT into the environment, those insects, take it up. Now you have an amphibian or some other critter eats that insect, and they eat multiple insects. So now they’re getting the dose that all of those insects had. Now you have a fish comes along, eats that amphibian, and they eat multiple of them. And so at each level, you have a higher and higher higher concentration of DDT. Finally, it gets to the bald eagle, but it’s not deadly to the bald eagle. What it’s doing is it’s preventing the females from taking up calcium in their diet. So like you said, when they go to lay those eggs, they are laying very thinly shelled eggs that get crushed under their own weight. Now, to put this in perspective, we do these things called egg crushing demonstrations in some of our programs to show just how strong an egg is. So if you take a chicken egg that you buy at the store, those can routinely support 60 to 70 pounds before they crush. Now bald eagles, the female bald eagle in this part of the country will weigh anywhere from 10 to 12 pounds, that’s significantly less, so the fact that they were crushing their own eggs under their own body weight shows you just how thinly shelled those eggs were. Now you have bald eagles live 20 to 25 years like we talked about. They are going to nest every year and they’re going to, you know, hatch another clutch of eggs every year. But suddenly you have this delaying factor, because they’re not dying out, right? But now you’ve gone, you know, 7, 10, 12 years without a successful replenishment of the population. You don’t realize that the population is crashing until you’re pretty far along in the process. And then people started to realize, well, wait a second, why am I not seeing as many bald eagles as I was before? What’s going on here? And then, you know, you have people like Rachel Carson, who wrote Silent Spring, you know. She was looking into these these types of things and started to shed light on okay, hey, what’s new in the environment? DDT, and they started to make those links. Thankfully, we noticed in time, and you were able to pass legislation. You were able to have public policy change. You were able to have the public buy into conservation efforts. And we were able to keep the bald eagle from disappearing forever. But it was the fact that it was like this delayed impact that it was having on the species that made it so nefarious, because if it had been like, oh, we started using DDT, and all the birds are dropping out of the trees, as soon as they breathe it in, that’s a pretty clear signal that something’s wrong. But it was the fact that it was this hidden impact that we didn’t see for years into the process that made it so dangerous. So now DDT is banned. We don’t use it anymore. Bald eagles have made a dramatic recovery. I always refer to it as the most successful conservation story we have in American history. It’s certainly the most prominent because obviously, you know, people have a lot of attachment to bald eagles. There’s, they’re so, you know, ingrained in American culture. They’re on the national seal, you know, military symbols, all those things. But there are ongoing threats to bald eagles. As I said earlier, you know, they were taken off the endangered species list in 2007, thankfully, but of course, there are ongoing things that impact them. And really the only threats to bald eagles out in the wild are human activity. You know, whether it’s poaching, you know, people deliberately shooting them. Things like lead in the environment. We see lead poisoning after every deer hunting season, because and again, it’s not, this lead poisoning of bald eagles is not an intentional act, you know, nobody’s going out into the woods saying I you know, I’m trying to poison these eagles. It’s unintentional, and it is totally preventable. We just encourage people to make the switch to lead free ammunition for deer hunting. You have things like pollution, climate change. You have concern about things like wind energy, and there’s ongoing research into, you know, what kind of measures can be taken with wind turbines that can help prevent, you know, unintended bird and raptor mortality. And there’s ongoing research about that. But again, all of these things that contribute to eagle and raptor deaths and bird deaths, in general, out in the wild, really come back to human activity.
Dean Klinkenberg 48:14
So eagles still have some protected status, correct?
Ed Hahn 48:18
Absolutely.
Dean Klinkenberg 48:18
Can you describe what that is?
Ed Hahn 48:20
Yeah, there’s there’s really two levels to eagle protection in the United States. So both bald and golden eagles are protected by something called the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. I believe it was of 1918. Don’t quote me on that year right now. But so, that gave them special protected status. But there’s also the North American Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which protects all native species in North America. And a lot of people don’t realize that. So, you know, if you’re out, you know, people often know, like–Oh, hey, you know, I’m not supposed to have a bald eagle feather. And they say, oh, it’s because it’s protected. But actually, if you’re out, you know, doing a hike in the woods and you come across a cardinal feather, you are also not legally supposed to be possessing that feather. And then when people will say–Well, what about you know, hunting? And the difference there is that when you’re a hunter, you buy the hunting permit, and that acts as your take and harvest permit that allows you to possess the animal that you harvest, and you’re also permitted to possess the feathers or the body parts and all that stuff. So there’s a difference there, you know? Now another interesting example would be the pheasant. The pheasant is a technically, it’s an invasive species because they’re native to Asia. And obviously, people hunt them but you also have game farms and because they’ve been introduced now they live, you know, in the wild as well. And you do see states, because they’re a gamebird, taking precautions to try to conserve those populations now, even though they’re not native. But the takeaway here is that, yes, bald eagles and golden eagles, they actually have two layers of legal protection. But all native species of birds in North America also have protection. And most people don’t realize that.
Dean Klinkenberg 50:16
I didn’t realize that extended beyond Eagles as well. So that’s interesting. So basically, like, it’s illegal to shoot eagles, and I guess those other birds as well, and, and there’s no legal hunting season for eagles, like there might be for some other animals. And if you come across eagle feathers in the wild, then we’re supposed to just leave them alone, right?
Ed Hahn 50:38
Technically, yeah. I mean, people often ask me, Hey, I was out, you know, I’m out hiking, and I came across a feather. And we always say, hey, you know, feel free to pick it up, take a photo with your phone or a camera, just don’t take it with you, when you’re done. Just put it back in nature. Let it go back to nature, you know. That’s what you’re supposed to do. In the case of the eagle ambassadors that we have at the National Eagle Center, they’re constantly molting their feathers, you know. It’s a continual process that birds go through to renew their feathers and replace their feathers. Even we cannot keep those feathers. We actually have to collect those feathers and we send them to the National Eagle repository out in Colorado, which is a facility that is run by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. And what they do out there is they will then take those feathers or whole bodies of eagles. They will catalog them, and then they are the entity that will then redistribute any requested materials. They work a lot with Native American tribes, you know. The tribes will use real eagle feathers for their ceremonial regalia and things like that. They go to the National Eagle repository to get those items. So there actually is a very controlled and official process to all of that. And the National Eagle Center has to do the exact same thing. We are permitted, we receive permits to keep some of the eagle’s feathers that we can use for educational purposes. But on the whole, we don’t even keep those feathers, we’re sending them to a very special place.
Dean Klinkenberg 52:06
Well, let’s talk briefly then about tips for people who want to go out and observe eagles in the wild. We touched on this a little bit before, that if you’re out in wintertime, it’s probably easier in some places, around open pools along the Mississippi just below a damn for example. What are like your tips for great places to see bald eagles, to observe them, times of year? And what, you know, is the protocol, or the least intrusive ways to observe the Eagles?
Ed Hahn 52:40
Yeah, great question. You really hit the biggest item earlier on when you said there’s no leaves on the trees. And that, you know, that is a huge difference. It’s not only in this part of the country that we have more eagles in this region because of the winter conditions, but they’re actually easier to see. You know, once the leaves come down, you know, up here, let’s say I drive from Winona to La Crosse, Wisconsin, that’s about a 30-minute drive. There’s probably 20 nests along the river that I can count just driving that 30 miles that I wouldn’t see during the summer. So everything is laid bare during the winter months. And so, you know, if you want to see if there’s eagles in your area, I would say, you know, during the winter, just go out and drive some of those roads that are near lakes or streams or rivers and just, you know, look through the canopy, because you’re going to be able to see very clearly any nests that are out there. And that’ll give you an idea, okay, you know, when spring comes around, maybe come out here, you know, March or late February and kind of see if there’s any activity around that nest. And typically, you know, those leaves won’t be on the trees again, until partway through nesting season. So you may be able to see some things going on in the earlier part of nesting season. As to the second part of your question, what’s the etiquette, the etiquette really is, you know, give the eagles their space. If you intrude too closely to their nest sites, you know, that’s going to give them undue stress. They’re going to become agitated. So we always just tell people, you know, don’t, don’t try to get up there. Certainly don’t climb trees, and you know, go up to nests. That is definitely don’t do that. But just be mindful, you know? Feel free to observe them from a distance, observe them from your vehicle. Those are really the best things. Again, they are, you can find them during the summer months. You know, I would always advise people that if you’re on, you know, the Missouri River or the Mississippi River or any river really, the best way to try to see eagles is going to be from the river itself. So you’re going to want to be out on a boat, because again, the leaves are on those trees, so you’re probably not going to see them from a road but they’re going to be perched on the river side of the tree anyway because they’re looking for those fish to eat. So you want to be out on the water or to actually see those eagles. So that’s my summer, my summer tip is you want to be out on the water and you want to be observing from the water.
Dean Klinkenberg 55:08
Yeah, I think that’s easy for us to forget is that, you know, eagles are actually just as abundant in the summertime. They may not cluster to quite the same degree as they do in the wintertime, but I drive along the Mississippi all year and pretty much every time I’m out on the road, in the summertime, I’ll see bald eagles, even in the summer months. And I have a couple places I know where they tend to be, where it’s more predictable. And I think that area around Reno Bottoms, kind of around the Minnesota-Iowa border, there’s definitely a large population of eagles around there. And I’m sure there are other places like that as well. So you can see them any time of year. It’s just easier in the wintertime because you don’t have the leaves obstructing your view. And because the open pools surrounded by ice tend to attract winter numbers. So what about time of day? Are the eagles more active at certain times a day?
Ed Hahn 55:58
Yeah, they are diurnal, just like people are, which means they’re active during the daylight hours. I would say typically, you know, they’re probably most active in a summer day, probably between 9am and, you know, 6pm. In the winter time when the days are shorter, I would say you know, 9am to about 3pm would be typical. So mid-day is really when you want to be looking for bald eagles. Because once once evening kind of comes in, they’re going to settle down for the night. They’re going to find that, that nice perch in a tree, or they’re going to go back to the nest, and they’re really not going to be out doing anything because as good as their eyesight is during the day, they can’t see any better than we can in the night.
Dean Klinkenberg 56:36
So I forgot to ask you about that, but eyesight must be their most acute, most acute sense, or what do they rely on for their sensories?
Ed Hahn 56:47
Yeah, they, well, it’s interesting. They, their hearing, their sense of hearing is on par with human hearing. There’s nothing really that special about it. They have almost no sense of taste, to speak of, and the same goes with smell. But their sense of vision, their sight is truly incredible. What most people don’t realize is that, you know, the human eyeball has one focal point in it. It’s called a fovea. And that’s where all the light is being collected. And that’s your focal point. Bald eagle eyes have two focal points in the back of their eye. One of them allows them to look straight forward just like we can, and the other one looks off at about a 45 degree angle to the side. That’s their telescopic vision, that super eagle vision. Now to put it in perspective, if you come to the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, we sit right on the river, the Mississippi River, and you can look out over the river and you can see the bluffs on the Wisconsin side. Those bluffs are about three miles away from the center. So the bald eagles that we have, the eagle ambassadors, when they’re looking out the windows of their display area, and they’re seeing those bluffs three miles away, they could see a rabbit running on the side of those bluffs with that side vision. Not that forward vision. The forward vision again, that’s about on par with human sight. But it’s that that side vision, that’s really impressive. And the other thing to keep in mind is, you know, if you know if somebody is visiting the National Eagle Center, and they’re in the room where the eagles are on display, if the eagle is looking right at you, straight at you, you’re thinking, oh, that eagle’s looking at me–well, no, they may be looking at what’s off to the side, because that’s when they’re taking a really close look. So if an eagle is looking at you, and all sudden they turn their head, and now they’re looking, they’re giving you that side eye now they may be giving you a really close look because that’s that telescopic vision. To put it in another, you know, description, if you had eagle vision, you could stand in an endzone on a football field and you could read a newspaper at the other endzone. That’s how good that vision is.
Dean Klinkenberg 58:58
Yeah, so you mentioned that they eat fish, but they are also scavangers, correct? They’ll eat carrion?
Ed Hahn 59:07
Correct. Yep. So they are, they’re exclusively carnivores. So they don’t eat any you know, vegetables, grains, fruits, any things like that. It’s all meat. But yeah, they will eat a variety of things: fish, they will eat small mammals like squirrels, rabbits. They will eat small amphibians and reptiles. They’re certainly scavengers. So a lot of times you will see them along the roadsides feeding on you know, raccoons or deer that have been hit by vehicles. And going back to threats to eagles, that is actually one of the most dangerous situations for them. Because let’s say you have a deer carcass that is right on the side of the road. That is like an all-you-can-eat buffet for an eagle and they are not wanting to give that up until they’ve had their fill. So if a car is coming, as opposed to getting out of a way, they may decide to stand their ground as they would with another eagle or another predator trying to steal that, or they may decide to take off too late. And you know, being the size of the bird they are, it takes them a little while to get airborne. And so if they take off too late that can result in them getting hit by vehicles. And so you do have quite a few eagles that go to rehab facilities that have been hit by vehicles. And one of our eagle ambassadors at the center, Ambassador Columbia, that is actually her story as well. She was hit by a truck after she was feeding on roadkill on the side of the road, tried to take off a little too late and got clipped.
Dean Klinkenberg 1:00:42
So you are the Marketing and Communication Director for the National Eagle Center. So tell us what the heck is the National Eagle Center?
Ed Hahn 1:00:51
Yeah, the National Eagle Center is a private nonprofit. We are located in Wabasha, Minnesota, and we are home to four permanently injured and non releasable bald eagle ambassadors and also one red-tailed hawk ambassador who’s also permanently injured. And so we are their caretakers, and we work with them to educate people all around the world, really, now that we have online virtual capabilities, just to teach them about eagles in general, the world of raptors. And now with some of our newer exhibits that we have at the center as well, we are delving more into some of the cultural connections that eagles have both in American culture and in native cultures. We also have lots of historical artifacts, fine art, things like John James Audubon pieces that really talk about the history of our understanding of birds and eagles, and their significance in American culture. So lots of new avenues that there are to explore at the National Eagle Center following our recent renovation in 2022. But yeah, we cover a lot of different things. We, you know, our experience that we offer people is unique, in the sense that people can get very up close in the display area to the eagle ambassadors. If you were to go to most zoos, or aviaries or nature centers, there’s going to be a physical barrier between you and the eagles. And while we do have a little glass wall–you can’t actually go up and touch the birds–but it’s an open airspace. So there’s no screen in between you. There’s no plate glass between you and the birds. And so it creates and fosters a very, I would say intimate experience for a lot of people. Our guests will walk into that space, if they’ve never been there before, and they’re just kind of blown away, like oh, my gosh, I’ve never been this close to a bald eagle before. And you know, that’s probably the closest most people will ever be. So it really is a, it’s an unforgettable experience. For a lot of people, it’s a very moving experience. It’s an emotional experience. We have a lot of veterans who come to visit the center who, you know, having served in the military and, and all the symbolism that that bald eagles have for our nation, it’s extremely moving for them. Same thing goes for Native American guests that come in, you know, obviously, there’s a huge spiritual and cultural connection there. And so we’re always happy to facilitate that. But even more than that, you know, I would say our mission right now, our mission is to be the world’s premier resource for impactful eagle education and experiences. And that’s what we’re trying to deliver through all the things that we do, whether it’s somebody coming in person and going to one of our live eagle programs, or maybe it’s a school group that comes and we do a special program for them. We travel with our eagle ambassadors. We do outreach work to like the VA Hospital in St. Paul. We’ve done a lot historically, we’ve done a lot of outreach to veterans groups, will travel to festivals, community centers, public libraries, and now kind of following the whole COVID era here, we do an offering of online virtual programs as well. So it’s really about, you know, helping people learn about the world of eagles and raptors, which is certainly just, it’s awesome. And there’s so much to learn. But it’s also fostering an interest in eagles and the environment, and how can we be better stewards of our planet and, you know, the environment we have around us because, you know, as the eagle goes, so we go. And that’s something that we really do need to keep in mind. And then we do a lot of experiential things as well, like we offer winter eagle viewing field trips, where we’ll take bus loads of people out to the heart of eagle territory, and we’ll we’ll show them bald eagles and golden eagles and anything else we may see along the way. We do summer cruises on the river. We do private tours with people, so if you just want to bring your family we’ll take you out on on a private tour and just we’ll cover anything that you want to learn about, whether it’s nesting or just general eagle viewing. Maybe you’re a photographer, and you just want to get some really cool shots, we’ll help you do that. It’s all about delivering and providing really memorable experiences for people.
Dean Klinkenberg 1:05:13
So why Wabasha? If people know much about Wabasha, it’s probably because of the Grumpy Old Men movies or something like that. How did Wabasha become the center for eagle knowledge and learning?
Ed Hahn 1:05:28
Yeah, well, you know, we’ve actually, we’ve talked about it in a roundabout way. We talked about how eagles are endangered. And we’ve also talked about why eagles are in the Upper Mississippi River Valley during the winter, those two things taken together, takes you to the origin of the National Eagle Center. So back in the 70s, and 80s, 1970s, and 1980s, when they were critically endangered, that was a period of time where if you saw a bald eagle in the wild–like people to this day will say, “Oh, I remember when I was 10 years old, and we were going to visit my my aunt and you know, x location, and we saw an eagle on the river as we were driving. And I’ll never forget that.” We have definitely people of a certain generation that grew up during that time, when that was a really big deal when you saw a bald eagle. And so there was a group of eagle enthusiasts and birdwatchers at Wabasha during that period of time that noticed that, hey, you know, there’s, even though eagles are endangered, there’s still a lot of eagles here during the wintertime. And so they would bring their friends, their families to Wabasha, other colleagues that were bird enthusiasts. And they would come to Wabash in the winter, and they would do eagle viewing, because it was one of those last places where you could reliably see a bald eagle during the winter months. And so that group of eagle enthusiasts eventually built a wooden platform that was right along the banks of the river, right outside where the current center stands today. And each winter, people would show up. They’d set up their spotting scopes, and they’d stand out there for hours at a time and just take in, take in the view and take in the eagle activity. And eventually, in 1989, that local group of enthusiasts officially incorporated into what is Eagle Watch Inc, that is the legal entity of the National Eagle Center. And then in 1999, they opened what was the first iteration of the Eagle Center in a very small storefront on Main Street, Wabasha. Then in 2007, we opened the marvelous facility that we have, and people are familiar with today. So yeah, we we’ve been around officially for a little over 30 years now. But it all goes back to when seeing a bald eagle was a really big deal. And thankfully, it’s still a big deal to see them today. But not for the same reason that it was then. We, we’ve made huge strides in preserving these majestic birds for not only those of us alive today, but future generations as well. And there’s a lot of important lessons that we need to apply from the bald eagle story to both their continued survival, but also to other species around the world that are facing those same types of threats.
Dean Klinkenberg 1:08:18
So what would be the best way for folks to keep up with the National Eagle Center and to learn about what’s going on there?
Ed Hahn 1:08:26
Well, I would say probably the best way is to follow us on Facebook. That’s really our most active platform. You can just search the National Eagle Center. There we do daily posts, daily lessons, live Facebook videos. We also have a YouTube channel, you can check that out as well. We’re on Instagram, you can always go to our website, NationalEagleCenter.org. We have links there to all sorts of resources, we have our RiverWatch cam, where you can see the eagles that are, what they’re doing right outside the center on the river. That’s up 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And you can find out any other events that are coming up and you can also plan your visit. If you want to make a visit anytime of the year, we’re open year round, or signup to go on one of our field trips or other experiences. So there’s lots to see do and learn.
Dean Klinkenberg 1:09:20
Fantastic. Well, Ed this has been really great talking with you. And thank you for taking the time to share your expertise. I feel like we covered a lot of ground today and I really appreciate your time. Thank you.
Ed Hahn 1:09:33
Yeah, it’s my pleasure. Thanks for having me today.
Dean Klinkenberg 1:09:37
If you want to know more about the Mississippi River, check out my books. I write the Mississippi Valley traveler guide books for people who want to get to know the Mississippi better. I also write the Frank Dodge mystery series that is set in places along the Mississippi. My newest book, Mississippi River Mayhem, details some of the disasters and tragedies that have happened along Old Man River. Find any of them wherever books are sold. And now it’s time for the Mississippi Minute. I just want to give you a quick preview of what’s coming up in the coming months. I needed to take a short little break there at the end of last year. I just had way too much going on, but I’m back now and I’m dreaming big. I have a lot of ideas for shows I want to do this coming year. I know I’ve got a couple of shows coming up where we’re going to look at African American and Native American culture along the Mississippi. I have some ideas for shows where we dive into different food related topics and make y’all hungry. I want to do a few shows about specific towns or places along the river. So we’ll go deep into specific communities this year, and probably throw in a show about another disaster or two. And most exciting, I’m really hoping to figure out a way to do some of these shows on the road. I’d like to record some episodes on location when I’m traveling around. I have a couple of technological issues to work out on that front, but I think we can make it work and I think that’ll be a lot of fun. So I will let you know when those are set up, when that’s going to happen and you can drop on by and be a part of the podcast. Thanks for listening. I offer the podcast for free but when you support the show with a few bucks through Patreon, you help keep the program going. Just go to patreon.com/DeanKlinkenberg. I’d be grateful if you’d leave a review on iTunes or your preferred podcast app. Each review makes a difference and helps other fans of the Mississippi River and the Midwest find this show. The Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast is written and produced by me, Dean Klinkenberg. Original Music by Noah Fence. See you next time.
