Eagle Watching
If you happen to be in the upstate New York area, there is plenty of chance to view bald eagles around the Hudson Valley region. If you take Metro-North’s Grand Central to Poughkeepsie train, there are numerous opportunities to see these majestic birds.
An added glory to see: Golden eagles drifting from the West have been seen this year circling Storm King Mountain.
New York’s January 2008 bald eagle count shattered a state record, with 573 birds spotted by helicopter and counted by a snow-busting ground team of many volunteers. That tally included 87 eagles on the Mongaup and Delaware rivers. The state Department of Environmental Conservation’s winter eagle count ended Jan. 14; totals weren’t ready last week.
But what’s fact is this: We’re now a big-time bald eagle watching destination. Eagle watchers now land in the hundreds at Narrowsburg’s EagleFest, which took place Saturday. And get this: Last January and February, the Barryville Eagle Institute volunteers “assisted nearly 7,000 visitors at the four public viewing areas on weekends in just 10 weeks.”
Bald eagles like life easy and, if they can, they’ll even use ice floes as a means of travel.
For example, five adults and 10 immatures began their voyage at New Hamburg at ebb tide on floe ice in full view of the train platform, and wound up 42 miles downriver, says the Hudson River Almanac — Huck Finns all, eating, loafing and congregating.
And, they can wait for what the American Indians called “the river that flows two ways” to take them back upriver.
