Where Eagles Soar, You Find Delight

Where Eagles SOAR,

you find delight

BY DAVID HELMS

Photography by Dr. Terry Wood

It’s simple.The first time you see a bald eagle flying in the wild you just never forget the sighting.

The average bald eagle has a body length of 28 to 40 inches and a typical wingspan is between six and seven and a half feet. An adult eagle’s average weight is 10 to 14 pounds.

The bald eagle is America’s national bird and we’ve all grown up seeing photographs of them. But when you see an eagle soaring overhead the sight of that magnificent bird just explodes the senses of the soul.

An adult bald eagle is mainly brown, but it’s their white head and white tail that tattoos that image into your memory bank for life.

In God’s sunlight an eagle’s head and tail shine like 5,000-lumen LED light bulbs.

The first time I saw the pair of eagles who have nested for almost 11 years now at Trace State Park in eastern Pontotoc County was in December of 2010. I had just walked off of no. 2 green at Pontotoc Country Club when I looked out over Trace Lake and saw them circling high above the water.

I put my golf game on pause for about 15 minutes as I watched the eagles put on an air-show. They made flying seem as effortless as breathing in and out. Only an occasional wing flap was needed to maintain their circling pattern as they scanned the water below. Then suddenly they flew for the opposite shoreline, covering several hundred yards in a matter of seconds.

The bald eagle is a powerful flier, reaching speeds of 35 to 45 miles per hour when gliding and flapping. Eagles can reach dive speeds in excess of 75 mph.

Bald eagles are not actually bald, the name derives from an older meaning of “white headed.” The males and females are identical in plumage but the female eagles are about 25 percent larger than males. Juvenile bald eagles are a mixture of brown and white, with a black beak in young birds.

The adult plumage develops when they are sexually mature at age five and their head and tail feathers turn white. An eagle’s beak and feet are bright yellow. The legs are feather free and the bird’s toes are short and powerful with large talons.

The highly developed talon of the hind toe is used to pierce the vital areas of prey while it is held immobile by the front toes. An eagle’s diet is 70 to 90 percent fish—live or freshly dead. They also feed on rabbits, coots and injured waterfowl.

The two eagles that I had spotted that December morning were a nesting pair and the “love birds” had only recently built a new home.

Back then, Pontotoc resident Terry Lynn Donaldson was golf course superintendent at Pontotoc and I was surprised when he told me where the eagles’ nest was located.

Instead of nesting in the Trace State Park, the eagles had built a nest in the top of a lone tall pine tree that was located only about 45 feet from number five green on the Pontotoc Golf Course.

In order to accommodate for the size of the parent birds, bald eagle nests are very large. The eagles’ nest overlooking number five green was perched at least 65 feet up in the pine tree. It was at least five feet wide and five feet deep.

By early May 2011, two baby eaglets could be seen sitting on the side of their large nest on the golf course. After another six to eight weeks the eaglets could be seen flapping their wings and lifting their feet off the nest platform.

Young eaglets fledge from eight to 14 weeks of age, but then continue to be attended to by their parents for another six weeks. When the adult eagles finally stop bringing food, the fledgling finally leaves the nest to begin hunting on its own.

In February of 2012 and 2013 the pair of eagles returned to their nest on the golf course, enlarging their home in the sky. In each of those years they raised another eaglet.

In February of 2014 the eagles again began adding to their nest on the golf course. But in March a strong storm blew through Pontotoc and the bottom portion of the large eagle nest was destroyed.

For weeks the whereabouts of the eagles were unknown, but in April it was discovered that they had built a new nest over on the Trace State Park side of the lake.

For the past seven years the two eagles have continued to live on Trace State Park and every year one or two baby eagles have been born.

In the fall of 2019 Pontotoc resident and avid photographer Dr. Terry Wood decided to find the exact location of the eagles’ nest in the park.

“For a couple of years I had taken pictures of the eagles flying at the lake and setting on the ole dead tree at the water’s edge, but I was photographing them from the levee on the golf course side of the lake,” Wood said. “I wanted to find the nest so I could get some close-up pictures and hopefully follow them through the whole process of laying, hatching and raising some young.”

In November 2019 Wood found their nest which was high atop a slender pine tree about 30 yards into the woods from the lake’s edge on the fishing side of the 600 acre lake.

Wood frequently photographed the eagles over the next five months, but especially during the 2020 months of February, March and April, which included the birth of two eaglets.

“In 2020 during the COVID shutdown I took a lot of pictures over a six to eight week period,” Wood recalled. “In January 2020 they were frequenting the nest a lot, adding to it, and I would hang around the nest.”

“In February I saw them mate while in a tree and they usually will produce an egg in six to 10 days. They hatch out in about 35 days.”

“So I photographed them a lot over the next 30 days because they would stay close to the nest. I probably took 10,000 pictures. I was able to take lot of pictures of them flying in and out of the nest.”

“A couple of times I was able to get a picture of them bringing in a fish to the nest so we were confident they had some babies in there. Then we started seeing some heads popping up out of the nest. They had two eaglets and it’s amazing how fast they grow. From March to July the baby eagles get huge.”

“The nest is really large so the eaglets are large by the time you see them setting up on the side of the nest. It’s amazing how quickly they mature and although it’s over a couple of months, they start flying quickly. “

“For several weeks they move out on the branches and flop around from limb to limb, but then off they go flying, like they’ve been flying for 10 years. By July they’re soaring the sky.”

“It’s extraordinary to watch them fly and maneuver, they’re just special creatures. And to listen to them call out to each other and then you hear the babies calling out to them when they leave the nest. It’s unforgettable. It was a joy — and a challenge—to photograph them.”