Bald Eagles on the Skagit

I spent all of last Saturday (1/6) watching bald eagles on the Skagit River with a North Cascades Institute field seminar led by local eagle guru Libby Mills -- we concentrated our search between Rockport and Marblemount on Highway 20 and had great success throughout the day. (We were lucky enough to not only stay dry, but also get some rare sunshine.) Dozens of eagles were easily viewable from the highway at the Rockport turn off, and our class found a prime viewing spot on the opposite side of the river where we stopped counting white heads after 100! One solitary big-leaf maple tree on the river's edge held between 30-40 eagles. Both adults and immatures were actively feeding on chum salmon carcasses that were washed-up on gravel bars. Our group also saw large steelhead jumping out of the water near the Marblemount hatchery (and the attendant fishermen, on shore and in drift boats), though the eagles weren't hunting them, probably because the chum carcasses were so plentiful. Libby reported seeing over 400 bald eagles (!!!) from one vantage point on the Skagit earlier in the week; she thinks she must've got lucky by showing up in the middle of a migration coming down from BC.



North Cascades Institute, where I work, has Eagle Watcher volunteers stationed up and down Highway 20 every weekend in to early February. They are out there rain or shine with spotting scopes, field guides, info on good viewing sites and lots of enthusiasm and good cheer. If you want to learn when and where the Eagle Watchers are located, please visit their webpage. There you can also find out info about the Bald Eagle Interpretive Center in Rockport, the Bald Eagle Festival in Concrete and more.


My favorite part of the outing came at the end of the day, when our group watched the eagles fly away from the riverbanks and disappear into the snowy mists on Sauk Mountain as they headed to their night roosts. Wish I would had a zoom lens to get better photos...

Skagit River
eagles
birding