Record number of bald eagle nests with eggs or chicks seen

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - There are a record number of bald eagle nests with chicks or eggs in southern West Virginia this spring.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports (https://bit.ly/1N4heTk) eight such nests have been observed along the New River and its tributaries between Hinton and the Virginia border. Six additional nests are being monitored for the presence of young eagles.

“We’re hoping to see a few more bobbleheads peeking out in the next week or so,” said Wendy Perrone, the executive director of Three Rivers Avian Center at Brooks in Summers County.

Surveys of the eagle population began 11 years ago with day-long winter eagle surveys along the New, Bluestone and lower Greenbrier rivers and their main tributaries. Two years later, a spring survey was added to check for signs of mating and nesting.

But it wasn’t until 2010 that chicks were spotted in a nest atop a sycamore tree at the New River Gorge National River. That nest continued to be occupied until last year, when a storm blew off the top section of the sycamore. The eagle pair built a new nest partway up a nearby hillside last December.

“There was a chick in that nest yesterday,” Perrone said this week.

The nation’s bald eagle population shrank to just 487 nesting pairs in 1963 after being shot to near extinction by farmers and suffering from the widespread use of the pesticide DDT.

While eagles could occasionally be seen passing through West Virginia in the years that followed, it wasn’t until 1981 that a bald eagle pair was seen nesting within the state. Now, there are estimated to be more than 100 nesting pairs in West Virginia.

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Information from: The Charleston Gazette-Mail, https://wvgazettemail.com.