On the Wings of Eagles

Recently, I had the opportunity to be involved with an extraordinary field trip stemming from a research project I am working on at West Virginia University.  In a nutshell, principal investigator Todd Katzner graciously asked me to be involved on a grant involving research to protect North America's golden eagles amid increasing interest in developing wind power.  Wind power has posed particular challenges because of the impact the towering wind turbines have on birds in flight.  The goal of our research is to shield the birds and their habitat by, for example, developing high-resolution maps depicting migration corridors and areas of habitat in regions where there is a high potential for wind development.

If you are interested in this research, you can read more details here.

Other primary members of the research team that participated in this field trip where Tricia Miller, Kristy Rowden, Adam Duerr, Terry Grubb, and Jeff Cooper, all from different places and with different expertise.  These wonderful folks were outstanding to work with and tolerated the presence of a statistician who was at best, in some instances, a passionate observer -- thank you!  At the start of the trip, Trish and I flew to piping hot Phoenix where we met Terry, Jeff, and Kristy for a long 6-7 hour drive west to southern California where we stayed the night at a Motel 6 in Barstow.  The evening drive through Joshua Tree National Park was mint!

Joshua Tree National Park

Over the course of the next four days, we drove to areas out in the Mojave Desert where we knew an active golden eagle's nest was based on advance information supplied to us.  Generally speaking, Death Valley bounded the east, and Kings Canyon National Park the west.  Much of the area was dotted with stark, precipitous island mountain ranges sprinkled throughout the vast desert plains that offered good habitat for cliffside nesting.  Hiking back to a nest often entailed scrambling through rocks, sand, cacti, and other desert flora (much of it thorny!).  When we would get to the nest, decisions had to be made regarding our safety, whether the eaglet was liable to jump from the nest, etc.  Two or three of us designated as climbers would ascend the cliffs with ropes and other climbing gear in order to rappel down to the nest.  Some of the rappels were easy while others were much harder, if not downright dangerous.

Terry Grubb rappels down to a golden eagle nest.  If you look closely, you can see the eaglet in the nest.

The climber(s) would capture the eaglet, carefully put it in a bag, and lower the bag to those who waited below.  Different measurements were taken and recorded, and then the eaglet was fitted with a backpack transmitter (utilizing cellphone towers) with the capability of producing a variety of data roughly every 30 seconds.  These data will then be used in the modeling we are doing back at West Virginia University.  After about an hour, the eaglets was raised back up to the climbers who returned it to the nest.  I note that when available we collected feather, scat, and pellet samples and that in a couple of instances, we found bits and pieces of chukar partridge, jackrabbit, etc., in the nest that "mom" had placed there for food.  Neat!

Todd (L) and I with a golden eaglet. 

On one day, the local major electrical utility company worked with us to capture golden eaglets from nesting platforms located in electrical line towers.  Some of our attempts were not successful; for example, one nest was too dangerous to risk a rappel while for another nest, the eaglet was too young.  All told, we captured six total making the trip a success!

And that pretty much sums up the adventure.  Work real hard from sunrise to sunset, find one of the many local Mexican restaurants for dinner, and crash for 5-6 hours of sleep at the nearest Motel 6.  In closing, what struck me was the beauty of southern California, as well as the beauty of these magnificent birds.  I feel so lucky to have had this experience, to help the golden eagles, and to work with such intelligent, knowledgable people.  So lucky ...

A Mojave Desert sunset.