Posted on 03/19/2007 8:07:16 AM PDT by Pyro7480
Bald eagle nest found in Phila.
PHILADELPHIA - Wildlife authorities have found the first bald eagle nest in the city in more than 200 years and hope the occupants will produce offspring, state officials said.
The nest "demonstrates the resilience of this species and its apparent growing tolerance to human activity," said Dan Brauning, a supervisor with the state Game Commission, in a statement Friday.
Officials are not disclosing the nest's exact location, to avoid disturbing it, but it is being closely monitored, the commission said.
"We don't know if the nest will result in the pair successfully breeding and laying eggs yet, but we are very hopeful," Brauning said.
The state began a campaign to re-establish the eagle population in 1983, when only three nesting pairs remained in Pennsylvania. Officials said last year that the number was higher than 100.
Bald eagles were upgraded from endangered to threatened status by the federal government in 1995 and by the state a decade later.
This isn't a picture of one of bald eagles (it was taken Iowa), but I thought it was still a neat picture.
A North American Bald Eagle kicks up some snow as it lands on the ice below Lock and Dam 12 on the Mississippi River near Bellevue, Iowa, Sunday March 11, 2007. (AP Photo/Quad City Times, Kevin E. Schmidt)
Nest, not news.
I would guess in Tinicum wildlife refuge around the airport.
First time in 200 years, huh? I bet the media trumpets this as a huge success coming directly from the ban on DDT about 35 years ago.
For me, the very best thing about being stationed at Ft. Riley, KS for three years was being able to watch the eagles out at Lake Milford...I had a little white MGB at the time, and one day, an eagle followed me a good bit of the way to Manhattan. At some point he decided I was probably just a wee bit too big for a meal.
Ping!
If you aren't impressed by a Baldie then you probably can't be impressed.
Then the species will survive. The same thing happened back in the 80's with the Peregrine Falcon in New York City. They started building their nests on the sides of skyscrapers and thrive in the city now. (Lots of rats, pigeons, cats and unattended yappy dogs on balconies)
This is why I roll my eyes whenever an "enviromentalist" starts carping on about removing the habitat of a species. Most "environmentalists" are agnostic or athiestic darwinists, and yet they worry about a species that they should be glad to see gone.
Strong species survive, weak species die out. Adapt or die is the rule of nature and yet these "nature lovers" hate nature for that rule.
The Bald Eagle has proved that it can adapt. It will make it as a species.
Bump for later as I "might" have seen an eagle in central
Jersey yesterday....JJ61
Go here, Eagle Cam to see live cam feed.
You sure it wasn't the car he wanted? He could have carried it off easily enough ;-)
When I was a kid a neighbour had an MGB. You just don't see them any more :-(
Wife Eagle: "There it is again. I feel like somebody is watching us. I just know they are."
Husband Eagle: "You're crazy. The only thing out there is that thing on a pole and it hasn't moved in months!"
No you don't...and she was a beauty, too. It was a '66 so it had the graceful chrome bumpers instead of the ugly black rubber ones the safety nazis mandated in '72. Chrome wire wheels, dual SU carbs, and red leather interior. I loved that little car!
That's another good site (I grew up just over the border in northern Delaware), but is any part of that within the city limits of Philadelphia?
I read that bald eagles can swim. Now the day that I'm out on the lake and a freaking bald eagle comes swimming past me is the day I just put my car in neutral and let it roll off a cliff.
Yep. We're on a major migratory route here in the Sequatchie Valley, 70 or so miles northeast of you. I fly gliders and powered planes here a lot and see baldies often in the spring and fall. Hard to miss that brilliant white head and tail. I also see a large variety of hawks, kestrels, ospreys, even monarch butterflies and ballon spiders that pass through here, too. The occasional golden eagle, too, but they are part of a breeding/seeding program by the State of TN to repopulate the species in this area.
Part of the refuge is in Philly, the rest Delaware County.
It flies over my house all the time. The thing that gets me is the wing span. Amazing.
I've seen eagles around Mud Run dam as well.
I'd imagine TN is Baldie heaven.
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