BALD EAGLES Haliaeetus leucocephalus & GOLDEN EAGLES Aquila chrysaetos
SITE GUIDE:
The fields below contain sighting data organized by season and year. Scroll through the fields to see all data. A list below the map contains links to the data fields. When you click on a data link, the field will come up next to the map. The map shows "hot spots" number and color coded to sighting details in the data fields.
Besides the seasonal data for all eagles, there is a data field for Golden Eagle sightings from April through September. There has never been a documented Golden Eagle nest in Virginia, but birders continue to report the birds during the breeding season.
Photos of both species eagles of different ages are below the link lists on the left.
A motion triggered camera took the photos in the slide-show on July 29, 2008. According to sighting reports, Highland's Bald Eagles hatch mid to late April and fledge in late May, but often hang near the nest for several more weeks. By mid summer people report seeing groups of six to 10 primarily juvenile and immature Bald Eagles, feeding on carrion often in recently mowed hay fields.
BULLETIN: Virgil Caine needs your support. Funds raised by a Birdathon raised the money necessary to put a telemetry unit on this golden eagle. Biologists from the Center for Conservation Biology (College of William & Mary) caught and released her in Highland County March 2008. Additional funding is necessary to continue tracking her.
Adopt her by clicking on ADOPT VIRGIL CAINE link in left column under Track Eagles. Click on the image in left column of her outfitted with the telemetry unit.
Send eagle sightings to: watcheagles@gmail.com
We were driving on back roads in the Blue Grass area a couple of winters ago and saw what at first we thought to be a large hawk. But as we got closer (he was perched on a branch near the top of a tree in a field on a mountain-side), we could see that he was much larger than a red-tailed hawk, which we can readily identify. His coloring and markings were decidedly different, too. Now that I see this information and pictures, I do believe we had an authentic sighting. We're seen bald eagles, too, but thought they had been some of the ones released in the wild (we saw two near Buena Vista a few years ago that had definitely been released into the wild). So exciting, nevertheless!!
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