The Road to the Place of the Eagles
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The Road to the Place of the Eagles Feature Article by Peter Sherrington t is late afternoon on December 9, 2007, Photo: Ron Ridout and I have finally called a halt to the Isecond season-long autumn raptor count at our Piitaistakis-South Livingstone site near the Crowsnest Pass in southwestern Alberta. We started on August 25 and have spent 100 days in the field. We have survived temperatures in the minus twenties and wind gusts to 150 km/h on the 1900 m high ridge. And we have tallied almost 8300 southbound migrating raptors of 17 species. Included in the total were 700 Bald Eagles, 1219 Sharp-shinned Hawks, 166 Northern Goshawks, 188 Red-tailed Hawks, 35 Peregrine Falcons, and a truly astounding 5445 Golden Eagles. Finally, I am convinced that we have found our long- sought El Dorado! It has long been known that Golden Eagles migrate through the western cordillera. In 1970, Dick Dekker reported Golden Eagle movement in the Alberta Eagle watchers at Mt. Lorette Photo: Cliff Hansen foothills near the Bow Valley. In 1974, well-known falconer and artist Frank Eagles migrating in the mountains were birds convinced me that the migration event Beebe noted that “a major flight of Golden generally considered anomalous. merited follow-up investigation. Eagles moves along the eastern front of the Particularly noteworthy was the almost In fall 1992, I returned to the Mount Rocky Mountains from central Alberta to complete lack of migration records from Lorette site to see if the route was also used Mexico in the fall, and back along the same Banff and Jasper National Parks. for southward migration. With a growing route in the spring.” He speculated that Sixteen years ago, Des Allen and I number of keen volunteers, including Jack many thousands of eagles were involved, stumbled on an eagle ‘highway’ following Steeves and Bill Wilson, I spent 33 days at a but provided no supporting details. In the the Front Ranges of the Alberta Rocky site close to the base of Mount Lorette. We mid-1980s, Wayne Smith began Mountains while conducting a general bird recorded the passage of 2044 Golden conducting fall reconnaissance counts at survey in the Mount Lorette area of the Eagles, including a single-day count of 476 Windy Point in the Sheep River valley Kananaskis Valley west of Calgary. It all on October 6. I was now becoming southwest of Calgary, and recorded steady started on March 20, 1992 with a single seriously intrigued. I decided to do a full movements of Golden Eagles following the soaring Golden Eagle that I saw at 11:30. count in spring 1993 at a valley bottom site mountain front. By the end of the day, we had counted over in the Hay Meadow beside the Kananaskis Nearly all previous records of 100 of the birds gliding high from the Fisher River, immediately east of the Nakiska ski migrating eagles had been from the Range across the valley to Mount Lorette hill. After 48 days, we had counted 4140 foothills area, and it was generally assumed where they soared before disappearing, Golden Eagles – 849 of which were counted that migration was concentrated there. Rare following the ridges to the northwest. Over on March 25 alone, giving me the first real sightings of concentrations of Golden the next seven days, our final tally of 389 intimation of the massive numbers of birds 4 BIRDWATCH CANADA Rosemary Power, we founded and E incorporated the Rocky Mountain Eagle Research Foundation as a charitable R organization. U George Halmazna and Doug and T Te r e s a D o l m e n c o n t i n u e d t o A independently explore for migration E routes in southernmost Alberta. In fall F 1998, Doug and Teresa watched for the first time at a site they called South Livingstone. This 1900 m site at the southern end of the Livingstone Range is H near the town of Frank in the Crowsnest Pass. In just three days, they recorded C 210 Golden Eagles. T That same fall, Harvey Kuszmaniuk A and I travelled to the Pine Pass area west of Chetwynd in northeastern British W Columbia. After two weeks of rain and snow, we eventually found Golden Eagles moving south along the ridges of E the Front Ranges east of the pass. H Subsequent reconnaissance counts by T Sandra Kinsey and Laird Law, out of Prince George, found that although the movement there is steady and N p r ed ictab le, th e n u mb er s ar e Photo: Ron Ridout O consistently much less than those at that might be involved in this migration. There is a general narrowing of the Mount Lorette. The movement at this Volunteers started watching at other Front Ranges to the south. Reconnaissance latitude is likely more diffuse, with the sites. We quickly traced a fairly linear route counts were conducted by George birds using a number of mountain and moving through the Front Ranges of Banff Halmazna at Highwood Pass and Plateau foothills ridges. and Jasper National Parks to the north and Mountain (about 60 km and 100 km south Explorations in the Tumbler Ridge along the Fisher, Misty, and Livingstone of Mount Lorette, respectively) and by Liz area slightly to the south suggest a Ranges to the south. By this time it had Saunders at the Livingstone Gap (140 km similar situation there. For a number of become obvious that we were dealing with a south of Mount Lorette). These counts years around this time we reconnoitered true migration involving both adult and produced encouraging results. various places on the western flanks of immature birds. With most of the adult birds In the meantime we continued counting the Rocky Mountains in the Columbia moving in March, we suspected their final at Mount Lorette, spending increasingly Valley, BC, but generally with destination was far to the north in Alaska more time at the site. We found that Golden disappointing results. Mount Lorette and the Yukon. Eagle movement extended from mid- continued to be our principal site in both The first full fall count in 1993 yielded February to late May in the spring, and from spring and fall. 5605 migrant raptors of 16 species, late August to early or mid-December in the Doug and Teresa continued their including 4599 Golden Eagles in 75 days. In fall. During the height of migration in pilot surveys at South Livingstone, 70 days the following spring, we counted March and October, birds could be seen counting 1137 Golden Eagles in nine 4695 migrants, of which 4213 were Golden migrating from dawn to dusk on any given days in fall 1999, and 1304 in just five Eagles. During these count periods we day. days in 2000. The year 2000 proved to be continued to explore other sites. In fall In 1997 we decided to conduct a full the most spectacular count to date, with 1994, we decided to count both at Mount count on Plateau Mountain, and spent 75 October 6 yielding 436 Golden Eagles at Lorette and at a site near Barrier Lake, some days watching from elevations up to 2500 Mount Lorette, and Wayne Smith 10 km to the north. This second site, which m. We had excellent views of the birds here counting 420 at Windy Point. The could not be seen from the Lorette site, (we assigned an age class to over 99% of following day, George saw 535 birds tapped a stream of birds moving along the them), but at the end we had ‘only’ counted pass Plateau Mountain, and on the 8th mountain front and high foothills, possibly 3853 Golden Eagles – a number similar to Doug and Teresa saw an amazing 1071 connecting with Wayne Smith’s Windy what we would have expected to have Golden Eagles at South Livingstone, Point site. This count was organized by counted at Mount Lorette. Although it was a with birds already in flight when they Rodger Dunn. Over a period of 48 days, splendid place to view raptors, Plateau arrived at the site. This still remains the they recorded 2195 Golden Eagles moving Mountain was obviously not El Dorado. largest single-day Golden Eagle count parallel to and east of the 3836 birds counted Because of its remoteness and the logistical ever recorded. It looked as if this could at Mount Lorette in 70 days of observation, difficulties of conducting a full-season be El Dorado, but it would be a few more for a total of 6031 Golden Eagles. We now count there, we decided to return to Mount years until we could confirm this. wondered whether there was a place where Lorette. By 1997 we realized that to ensure We continued gathering valuable these two streams came together to produce the continuation of this ever-expanding data at Mount Lorette and conducting the greatest concentration of Golden project, we needed to become more reconnaissance counts elsewhere. On Eagles. If so, where was this El Dorado? organized. Largely through the efforts of October 15, 2004 we experienced SPRING 2008, NUMBER 43 5 return to Mount Lorette for the 15th consecutive year. In 83 days we tallied the lowest spring Golden Eagle total ever, just 2141 birds, which continued a declining trend that started in about 1995. To put it another way, the average count from 1993- 95 was 4165 Golden Eagles tallied over an average of 544 hours per season; the average for 2003-07 was 2566 birds counted in 1135 hours a season.