It looks like America’s national bird is making quite a comeback in Virginia:
WILLIAMSBURG (AP) — An aerial survey of Virginia’s bald eagles turned up 485 pairs of the birds and 705 chicks along the lower Chesapeake Bay and its tidal tributaries.
“We’ve far exceeded our wildest expectations,” compared to when the survey began in 1977, said ornithologist Mitchell Byrd, past director of the Center for Conservation Biology at the College of William & Mary.
The center conducts the annual survey along the York, Rappahannock, Potomac and James rivers.
Each March, biologists conduct an aerial inventory of nests and check for nesting activity. They fly over tributaries and shoreline along the lower Bay again between April and mid-May to look for chicks.
Ninety-five percent of the bald eagles in the state nest in the Bay’s tidal tributaries.
Last year’s survey found 429 active nests with 657 chicks, up from 401 nests and 612 chicks in 2004. In 1977, Mr. Byrd counted 33 pairs.
Good news.
