About time to head up to Croton for the eagles again, isn’t it? Reports suggest that the warm winter, barring the odd cold snap, isn’t sending the birds further south. There aren’t a lot of the birds around Croton this year, but there should be a few. This post is from the archives:
Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) over Croton Point Park. Hugely perched in trees, wheeling in the air on their seven-feet wingspans, primary feathers sticking out like fingers, or powerfully, but not super-speedily, rowing through the air. I was reminded of the giant eagles in Tolkien, deus-ex-machina-ing over and over again to pull Hobbits and wizards out of the fire. 
In John Bull’s Birds of the New York Area, of 1964, Croton Point was “by far the best place in winter to observe Bald Eagles.” In 1951, 18 were seen there on a single day. But the numbers were plummeting. Shooting, hunting, and egg collecting, once a popular hobby, had taken their toll (for instance, Bull cites an 1844 report of 60-70 eagles shot on Long Island); removal of the large trees used as nests; and pesticides running up the food-chain to the top predator; all these were cited…
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