Winona District's Wildlife Refuge Specialist Tony Batya scans the river for bald eagles.

On March 24, 2008 eyes were to the skies, the ice and the tree branches on the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge as 21 crews on land and sea counted bald eagles.  Refuge staff, federal and state agency personnel and numerous volunteers braved the 20-something temperatures to get outside and capture the peak of the eagle migration on the 261-mile long Refuge. 

“This is a unique experience being out here on the ice with bald eagles everywhere” said La Crosse District volunteer Allen Sheldon as the airboat moved over ice-covered backwaters.

During the count, each eagle was tallied along with the time, location and the bird’s age (i.e. mature - full white head and tail - or immature - brown or mottled head and tail). This year 2920 tallies were made that included 1,683 adults, 740 immatures and 497 unknown.  In order to minimize duplication of eagle sightings, the count was conducted Refuge-wide on one day with a push to finish in the morning. While in the field, observers kept track of where birds were moving and, to the best of their ability, avoided counting birds they had already counted. 

As indicated by McGregor District’s Seth Kettler this can be a difficult task,  “It’s easy when the birds move up a few trees and land, or stay up in the air until you’ve passed by, but at times there can be too many moving at once – you just have to make your best call.  Having two observers helps.”

The count started in 2006 with the goal of determining the peak number of eagles using the Refuge during spring migration.  The original survey date was set using count information collected by Winona District 2008 Volunteers of the Year Bob and Jean Duncanson who had counted eagles regularly in the winter on a 132-mile stretch of the refuge for 22 years.  After looking at their data, the mid-late March time frame was clearly the favored migration period.   Another indicator that the count date was about right were reports from Savanna District staff at the southern end of the Refuge in Illinois.  All three years of the survey they have noted a drop in their eagle numbers on the count day compared to the weeks prior to the count, which indicates the eagles were on the move.  

The average of the three counts conducted from 2006 to 2008 is 2,953 bald eagles.  The Refuge will take a break from the count for a few years, then start the process over again to see if there are any changes in the number of eagles migrating through.