'Remarkable' Bald Eagle Spotted In Riverside Park: Conservancy

UPPER WEST SIDE, MANHATTAN — Seeing a bald eagle in New York City may have become more common in the last few years, but that doesn't mean spotting the bird in one of the Big Apple's parks isn't cause for excitement.

For the Upper West Side's Riverside Park this week, a sighting of America's national bird had gardeners "downright giddy," conservancy staff said.

"Every few years you'll see an eagle, but it's still pretty rare," Riverside Park Conservancy Development Associate Anastasia Galkowski told Patch. "It is definitely a remarkable sighting to see it perched in the park like that."

Galkowski said the three gardeners spotted the bird on Tuesday sitting in a tree near West 113th Street, which is about three blocks away from the park's 60 acres of woodlands.

The sighting was particularly rare given that eagles are usually spotted when they are flying around the park. But, it still makes sense the bird would be hanging out near the Hudson River given that bald eagles are fisher birds, Galkowski said.

And Tuesday's sighting doesn't seem to be the first time the eagle visited the park.

Since sharing the photo of the bald eagle online, the conservancy has heard from parkgoers who say they've spotted him or her as far back as New Year's Day, Galkowski said.

"It's exciting to us that the public gets so excited when they see wildlife like this," Galkowski said. "We love it when people are so engaged."

Conservancy staff who had gone looking for the bald eagle again on Wednesday said they weren't able to find him yet, but that doesn't mean he still isn't around.

The once-endangered birds are becoming more common in New York City after rebounding over the last few decades.

In 2015, bald eagles built their home in the Big Apple for the first time in a century when a pair of the birds set up a nest in Staten Island, according to CBS at the time.

There were at least 110 nesting pairs in New York State as of 2006, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a huge rebound from the 1960s when there was only one pair of eagles known to nest in all of New York.