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Oak Island Adventure.......
Story kind of speaks for itself, I'll add some photos in a reply:
http://www.grandforksherald.com/cont...s-final-flight
BRAD DOKKEN: An old eagle’s final flight
By Brad Dokken Today at 5:30 a.m.
And so the adventure began.
Walsh and his wife, Laura, own Walsh’s Bay Store Camp on the Lake of the Woods island, which sits on the U.S. side of the Minnesota-Ontario border. As with all of the island’s residents this time of year, the Walshes were between seasons, that time of year when there’s too much ice for a boat and too much open water for a snowmobile or ATV.
When you’re stuck on an island, it’s the time of year you spend a lot of time looking out the window waiting for the ice to melt.
Walsh said the eagle he spotted seemed to be fighting with a duck or some other bird.
“It was literally at the edge of the ice,” he said. “That’s where you tend to see most of them. There was some activity, but even with the binoculars, I wasn’t quite sure, but something was going on.”
That something, Walsh concluded, was a broken wing.
“It was trying to fly,” he said. “You hate to see it, but what are you going to do.”
An hour or two later, Walsh looked out the window again, and the eagle was gone.
“I know it didn’t miraculously fly away, but at least I didn’t have to watch it,” he said.
Walsh was still thinking about the eagle the next day when he pulled up to the dock with the airboat — his only mode of between-time transportation — after getting the mail at a nearby resort.
That’s when he saw the eagle in the weeds near shore.
“Now it’s in my yard, and I’m wondering, ‘What am I going to do?’” Walsh said.
It was about that time he called me wondering if I had any suggestions. Beth Siverhus, a wildlife rehabilitator from Warroad, Minn., was the first person who came to mind, so I gave him her number.
Siverhus told Walsh that if he could get the eagle to Young’s Bay on the Northwest Angle mainland, she’d drive up and take it from there.
Tricky logistics
Before he could even think about the logistics of taking a federally protected bird to the mainland by airboat for a trip from Minnesota through Canada and then back into Minnesota — the only option when going the 60 miles from the Northwest Angle to Warroad by road — Walsh had to catch the eagle.
He called Greg Ritter, a retired game warden and island neighbor, and plans were made to subdue the bird the next day because darkness was approaching.
In the meantime, Laura Walsh had rounded up a piece of Atlantic salmon to feed the eagle. But when Frank approached with the tasty morsel, the eagle ran off.
“I’m thinking, ‘This bird is going to be gone coming morning,’” he said. “It’s now or never.”
And so the chase ensued, Walsh wielding a large muskie net and the eagle doing everything it could to avoid the large muskie net. The eagle was crafty, Walsh says, but he managed to catch and corral the bird into a dog crate after about five minutes.
“One of my great fears was the eagle getting on the ice because I wasn’t going after it,” he said. “Luckily, it went down the bank where the snow was knee deep and just as soft as could be. When it hit that, the bird couldn’t even run.”
Walsh covered the pet cage with a blanket and put the eagle in a pole shed for the night. The next morning, the salmon he’d left in the cage was gone.
The next leg
Arrangements were made for Siverhus to pick up the eagle last Thursday night, and so Walsh and Ritter hauled the bird by airboat across six miles of ice and slush and open water to Young’s Bay.
Siverhus, with help from Jeff Birchem, a retired Minnesota conservation officer, had contacted Customs authorities that she’d be bringing the eagle across the border. She was waiting at Young’s Bay when Walsh and Ritter pulled up to shore with the airboat.
“I wish I would have gotten some pics of them coming across the bay at sunset in the airboat with the dog kennel in front being carefully guarded by (Ritter),” Siverhus said in an email. “Very cool.”
She said transporting the eagle from the Northwest Angle into Manitoba and then back into Minnesota in her Ford Escape was “a new and interesting experience.”
“The U.S. Customs officers were great,” Siverhus said. “They loved to see the eagle in the kennel in the back of the Escape.”
Siverhus said she knew as soon as she saw the eagle that it would have to be euthanized because of its nasty compound wing fracture, but she decided to send it to the Raptor Center anyway.
Marvin Windows had a plane going to the Twin Cities the next morning, and Siverhus arranged for a Raptor Center staffer to pick up the eagle at the airport.
“They have more gentle methods than I for euthanasia,” she said.
One old bird
Despite the unfortunate ending, the eagle’s story took a comforting twist later that afternoon when the Raptor Center contacted Siverhus.
The eagle had a leg band showing it was 32 years old and had been banded in Ontario in 1982 when it was too young to fly, presumably as a nestling.
As wild eagles go, they don’t get much older than that. Grand Forks raptor expert Tim Driscoll said 20 years is about the oldest he’s ever heard for an eagle in the wild, and I couldn’t find any records of eagles living that long unless they were in captivity.
How the eagle broke its wing also is a mystery. Lori Arent of the Raptor Center said in an email that X-rays found no evidence the eagle had been shot, and the bird tested negative for lead poisoning.
“We also don’t have any idea what caused the extensive wing damage,” Arent said. “There was no evidence of a classic territorial fight.”
Walsh and Siverhus said they were saddened by the eagle’s fate but took comfort in the long life it lived — and the remarkable journey that marked its last few hours of life.
“Capturing him at least prevented weeks more of suffering,” Siverhus said. “Frank fed him Alaskan salmon for the day or so he had him — not bad for a last supper.”
Walsh said he felt better after learning the eagle had lived as long as it did. It’s hard not to wonder, though, what happened to the eagle — and where it traveled during its 32 years on this earth.
“If this wouldn’t have happened, it probably would have died somewhere and no one would have even known,” Walsh said. “I guess 32 years kind of gives me some peace.”
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That is a really cool story. Even though the eagle won't make it, it's rare to be able to get that close to one. Truly an experience of a lifetime. Another advantage of living where you do.
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Good story Frank, and you did the right thing. Reminds me of the baby eagle we saw stranded on the Big Pony Island. Always wondered what happened to that bird.
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Once again Frank you are my hero. Thank you Brad for sharing this true adventure with us and a heartfelt thank you for all that were involved.
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That is very cool Frank! Nice work!! Bet it was cool to be that close to, and actually battle with, a bird of that size!!
Not too many people can say they had that type of experience!
Bob Anderson
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Great story Frank. Fabulous looking bird.
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http://www.grandforksherald.com/outd...now-rest-story
There's a lot we'll never know about the old eagle that was found with a broken wing early last May on Oak Island of Lake of the Woods and later euthanized because its injuries were too extensive.
How did the eagle break its wing? X-rays taken at The Raptor Center in St. Paul found no indication the eagle had been shot or any other signs of foul play, and the bird tested negative for lead poisoning.
Those circumstances will remain a mystery. So will the question of where the eagle spent its time. As I reported in "An Old Eagle's Final Flight," a column published May 11, the eagle had a leg band showing it had been banded in 1982 somewhere in Ontario.
Where in Ontario wasn't known. And Beth Siverhus, the Warroad, Minn., wildlife rehabilitator who transported the eagle from the Northwest Angle to Warroad and arranged for its flight on a Marvin Windows plane to the Twin Cities, hadn't gotten any further information about the band.
New twist
That appeared to be the end of the story until Monday morning, when I received a call from Ann Zavoral of Fargo. Zavoral and her family have a cabin on Flag Island adjacent to Oak Island, and when she received a copy of the column about the eagle, she took the initiative to contact Jim Grier.
A professor emeritus of biological sciences at North Dakota State University, Grier spent some 40 years banding eagles, mainly in northwestern Ontario, a region that includes the Ontario side of Lake of the Woods. His work has been well-publicized, both in newspapers and on TV.
"I have always wanted to talk with Jim Grier," Zavoral said. "Was he the man" who banded the bird?
Sure enough, he was.
In a phone interview, Grier, who retired in 2006, said he received a report on the eagle's band return in August from the federal Bird Banding Laboratory in Maryland. Information on all birds banded in North America, whether in the U.S. or Canada, is handled through the Maryland laboratory, Grier said.
It's standard procedure for the person who bands a bird to receive reports on band returns, he said.
"They put it in the computer, and if that band ever gets recovered, then they go back and get the original banding information," Grier said. "They combine that with what they call the 'encounter,' and then they send that to the bander."
When and where
According to the report, Grier banded the eagle chick June 19, 1982. Based on latitude and longitude coordinates he provided in his banding report, the nest was on McPherson Island, about 12 miles east of Oak Island.
Grier estimates he has banded about 1,400 eagles and says he gets occasional reports on band returns, which he then keeps on file. The Raptor Center could have requested permission from Grier to supply the band information if they'd known he'd banded the bird, but that wouldn't be common.
"Usually, The Raptor Center people are so busy they don't have time," he said.
Grier, who began studying eagles in 1959, said his original work area was near Red Lake, Ont., but the study area by the late 1960s had expanded to about 90,000 square miles.
Research showed the Ontario side of Lake of the Woods had some of the highest densities of eagle nests, Grier said, so that became a focus area.
"It was just a whole lot easier and cheaper logistically to focus on Lake of the Woods," Grier said. He became well familiar with the Ontario side of the lake and its maze of islands while traveling among nest sites by boat.
"We'd put in a few thousand, maybe a couple thousand miles during the summer just by boat," he said.
Grier, whose work involved climbing tall trees and banding young eagles in their nests, said he doesn't remember specifics about the eaglet banded on McPherson Island, but he said the bird was probably about 6 weeks old.
For years, Grier says, he was among only four researchers doing large-scale banding in North America; the others worked in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Wisconsin and Michigan.
Better tools
These days, he says, technology such as GPS transmitters provides researchers with better information than bands alone can supply.
"Several eagles have been tracked for a number of years," Grier said. "They can follow the bird and know right where it's at at any one time, so more of the effort and funding and research has kind of gone in that direction."
Chances are, the eagle euthanized last spring could have lived longer -- perhaps even several more years -- if not for the misadventure that broke its wing. It's not uncommon, Grier said, for eagles in the wild to live more than 30 years.
"We've gotten others in that same age range," he said. "The ones of us that banded several thousand birds stay in touch and let each other know when there's an eagle significantly older. We've had several birds now in that 32-year range.
"In the wild, a lot of them don't make it through their first few years, but those who make it to adult, a lot make it into that 30-year range, and then it drops off from there."
Siverhus, the Warroad wildlife rehabilitator, said she knew nothing about the old eagle's band information until contacted this week.
Next summer, she said she hopes to visit McPherson Island and perhaps find the nest where the eagle was fledged.
"If that eagle could only have told his life's story," she said.
Indeed.
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Now I can't wait until McPherson Island is visited this summer saga.
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That's a great story. Do the eagles stay on LOTW all winter or migrate south during the real cold period?
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They leave for the most part. Might see one or two around the fish guts on the warmer days, but usually gone below zero. They usually start showing up again in big numbers the last days of February, first of March. Not unusual to see 20+ on the fish gut pile. Then they start pairing off and run off to some cheap motel. I don't know about the open water areas. Suspect they might hang around them a bit more.
I offered to take them on a jaunt to McPherson later this year, so just might have an addendum.
Dick, were you lunching with me on McPherson when we encountered the obviously sick eagle?
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Cheap motel you say eh?... I've heard of dogging, might have to try Eagling now!
Great story Frank. BTW, How's little Scarlet doing, I imagine she's not so little any more.
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Scarlett is doing fine. This is her right now snoozing by her toy box.
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Aww. She outgrew her pillow then. 
Here's my present incumbent. We're out pheasant shooting and in between drives he decided he needed snuggles, which kind of blew the rufty tufty hunting dog image!
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Looks like a scene from the Hounds of the Baskervilles. It would probably shock you to know that I have Barbour jacket myself. But the question is; just what is that other dog licking? Hopefully nothing his master taught him.
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The other dog is a very pretty little tri coloured Cocker called "Lady". As you can see, she ain't no lady, or at least no lady I've been lucky enough to meet.
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