This year, Rock Island Field Office biologist Anne Mankowski assisted the Illinois Endangered Species Protection Board on several Illinois routes as part of the North American Midwinter Bald Eagle Survey, conducted January 12 and 13 across the nation. 

The survey routes ran along a 132-mile stretch of the Illinois side of the Mississippi River, from Lock and Dam 13 to below Lock and Dam 18. The survey included surveillance of two night roosts.  

Although unseasonably warm weather and the largely unfrozen water of the river caused birds to be quite dispersed, the surveys recorded 519 bald eagles over the course of the two-day survey.