Nest surveys will alternate years

Georgia’s bald eagle recovery effort has reached the point where state wildlife biologists can no longer attempt to keep up with each known nest on an annual basis. That news comes as Berry College welcomed its newest residents, two young eaglets this past week, B10 and B11 hatching within 24 hours of each other.

Bob Sargent, program manager in the non-game division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources said that a combination of time and economics led to the decision to monitor known nests in half of the state one year and the rest of the state in alternating years. This year, Sargent said the nest surveys would take place in Northeast Georgia and along the Atlantic coastal counties.

Sargent said trying to monitor the entire state amounts to ten full days in a helicopter. “It’s still a priority species, it’s still a state-threatened species in Georgia,” Sargent said. “We’ve had three consecutive winters with over 200 nests, so it’s doing phenomenally better.”

Sargent said the survey along the coast this winter revealed that five nests had apparently been lost to storms last summer. The good news is that the survey team did report four new nests.

Sargent said he wanted to put a little more effort into other species that are not doing as well as the eagle. He mentioned Black Rails, Henslow sparrows, Sandhill cranes, kestrels, peregrine falcons and others.

Sargent said public interest in the bald eagle restoration effort remains high. He said he couldn’t remember how many calls he has gotten from people who report seeing a bald eagle in the wild for the first time in their life.

“It’s still a very inspiring story to the public,” Sargent said.

Berry Associate Professor of Biology Renee Carleton said the bald eagle population has really exploded around many of the inland reservoirs that were built half a century ago. She suspects the famous pair that has a nest behind the Cage Center at Berry may have been offspring of eagles from Weiss Lake, Carters Lake or Lake Allatoona.

“We have the perfect environment,” Carleton said, referring to the proximity of the large reservoirs and confluence of two river systems, the Oostanaula and Etowah, which meet in Rome to form the Coosa River.