A New Generation Of Long Island Born Bald Eagles

There is an excitement all over Long Island with the sudden influx of "American bald eagles" nesting all over Long Island that are now about to hatch a new generation of "Long Island-born bald eagles."

A prime example is the very photo for this post that was taken by a friend of mine, Dr. Rebecca Grella, right near her home in Northport.

Yes, the efforts of so many environmentalists over the last 50 years has not only saved the once endangered species but now has made it possible for a new influx of bald eagles to be successfully nesting all over Long Island.

In many communities bird watchers have been monitoring the progress of the bald eagles' nesting in vigils, keeping dedicated vigils down below, near the nests. They are in awe of the great birds as they fly around their nests with a majesty that John Denver wrote about in songs 50 years ago.

Having witnessed the return of the osprey, or sea eagles, to Long Island, I am so excited to know that soon in the next decade there will be bald eagle nests all over Long Island because, just like the osprey, the new bald eagles and their young will return to where they were born to mate and nest. Every spring right next to my sailboat dock in Three Mile Harbor in East Hampton, I watch five to six osprey sort out who gets that nest this year.

To see my first ever Long Island bald eagle, I drove 28 miles, heading north, earlier this spring. There I witnessed Long Island bald eagles flying around their nest right off Route 25A in Centerport.

The nest was huge and distinctive. The excitement of watching the bald eagles soaring overhead had the literally hundreds of folks around me in a reverent silence. All you could hear was the wind and the sound of expensive camera shutters clicking at high speed.

For me, it was a religious experience. Note: immature bald eagles have mostly dark heads and tails; their brown wings and bodies are mottled with white in varying amounts. Young birds attain adult plumage in about five years. The bald eagles in Centerport were totally adults. Ever since I was a Boy Scout more than 50 years ago I have always looked into New York skies hoping to somehow see a bald eagle, and then all of a sudden I was watching two of them putting on a Long Island show!

Fast forward to this last weekend while I was walking only seven miles from my East Patchogue home at the Wertheim National Wildlife Refuge in Shirley and across in the distance across the Carmen River marsh near the Great South Bay on the east side I saw this huge nest in the highest tree of many big trees. I knew what I was looking at, it was the same type of huge nest I saw in Centerport.

The average bald eagle nest is 4 to 5 feet in diameter and 2 to 4 feet deep. Each year the adult pair will add 1 to 2 feet of new material to the nest. The largest recorded bald eagle nest, located in St. Petersburg, FL, was 9.5 feet in diameter, 20 feet deep and weighed almost three tons. This one was not quite that large. Only after spotting this huge nest off in the distance did I look way above the nest. There I saw a very large soaring bird with the distinctive wingspan of a bald eagle. It was so high it disappeared into the low clouds. That's when I realized soon in this next generation many great American bald eagles will be soaring all over the skies of Long Island. That idea made me smile.

Patch photo courtesy Dr. Rebecca Grella.

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