Recently my wife, Bea and I were invited to attend the Canyon Birders annual eagle count along the Snake River in southeastern Washington. The Canyon Birders is an established club within the Lewiston/Clarkston Valley, originally founded by local educators. The organization is recognized for organizing well-regarded birding excursions at various sites throughout the region. They have conducted the eagle census for many years. This nationwide survey began in 1979 to monitor Bald Eagle populations across the lower 48 states. Check out this website for more history of these eagle surveys. https://gis.nacse.org/eagles/history.php
Jim & Bea Harrison
Although Bea and I have birded for over forty years, we had never heard of an “official” eagle count, so we were excited about being invited to attend. We joined the group of 20 people traveling a route that is about thirty miles long starting at Swallows Park in Clarkston to Heller Bar at the confluence of the Snake and the Grand Ronde Rivers. We car-pooled and caravanned our way up Snake River Road, stopping every couple of miles at pull outs, getting out and searching for eagles and of course anything else that flies. The locals were concerned that we might not see any bald eagles because the river was running much higher than usual for this time of year, making it very difficult for them to find fish and making fewer sand bars for the eagles to hunt from. The weather was a mild 46 degrees F, but the wind made it seem much cooler, though there was no snow on the ground.
The canyon was full of a surprising number of robins. We saw them gorging on hackberries and I heard someone say that every American Robin in the country was in the L/C Valley right now! We also saw a lesser goldfinch and a ruby-crowned kinglet, and a song sparrow in one small bush. Winter mixed flocks? Bea and I were thrilled to see a group of Chukars on boulders near the road and then we saw a beautiful singing canyon wren.
The Snake River Canyon is spectacular, with tall cliffs and unusual rock formations on both sides of the river. Besides birds, we enjoyed seeing large numbers of big-horned sheep and mule deer.
We stopped for lunch at Heller Bar and tallied the numbers. The total for the day was 9 golden eagles and 7 bald eagles plus one unknown eagle. The goldens outnumbered the balds both this year and last year which is a new trend. Because the eagles didn’t have sand bars to hang out on, we had to identify most of them flying high in the canyons. This made it very challenging, but we did manage to get some great looks at goldens interacting and we saw one adult bald eagle sitting in a nest tree across the river from us.
We enjoyed birding with this group and found them to be very friendly and welcoming, and it gave us a chance to find new places for future Spokane Audubon field trips.
