Golden catch on the Chattahoochee
How to catch a ghost? If it has a 6-foot-plus wingspan and a taste for carrion, try roadkill. And patience.
Although one of the largest raptors, golden eagles are called ghosts of the eastern North American forest because of their secretive ways and preference for high-altitude woodlands. But research using camera “traps” and transmitters is revealing their migration paths and habitat use in the East.
That study began tracking a third Georgia bird on Feb. 22.
For three winters, golden eagles have fed at a camera-monitored bait pile stocked by the U.S. Forest Service on the Chattahoochee National Forest near Dalton. This February, one eagle was returning like clockwork, said Forest Service wildlife biologist Ruth Stokes.
The first try at trapping it – an 11-hour wait in rain and fog – failed. The second landed a second-year male. See photos and video of the release.
The Appalachian eagles project led by Dr. Tricia Miller of West Virginia University – and joined in Georgia by DNR’s Nongame Conservation and Game Management sections, the Forest Service, and nongame friends group TERN – is monitoring cameras in multiple states and tracking 25-30 eagles from the Southeast alone through transmitters the size of small phones with solarrechargeable batteries.
The other two Georgia eagles, named Devil’s Backbone and Flint for their catch sites, spent last summer in separate sites. Devil’s Backbone flew to eastern Quebec, a common hangout for eastern U.S. golden eagles, and Flint to Ontario.
The study is showing that migration patterns tend to differ depending on how far south and west the eagles winter, Miller said. Flint was the project’s first eastern bird to migrate to Ontario and the first to fly by the Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory in Minnesota. Where the ’Hooch eagle will go is up in the air. Young birds wander more than adults, Miller said.
Stokes stressed that healthy habitat for golden eagles means large contiguous forests with lots of sunlight and low tree density. For more than 10 years, the Forest Service has used thinning and prescribed fire to restore and maintain woodlands in the Armuchee area, benefiting many species.
Stokes also said the day after this eagle was caught, another came to the bait pile.