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The Peregrine Chick:
Think this is the story you saw Sheltiegirl ...


Bald eagles return to Lake Ontario shore
Jim Wilkes, Toronto Star Staff Reporter

Are a couple of American icons making babies in a Hamilton marsh?

If successful, the pair of bald eagles nesting in a tall white pine in Cootes Paradise just might be breeding the first homegrown young on Lake Ontario’s north shore in 50 years.  The majestic creature, whose wingspan is more than two metres, is the national bird and a patriotic symbol of the United States.

The eagles were first spotted in the wilderness area west of Highway 403 in 2009, when the male was too immature to reproduce, said Tys Theijsmeijer, head of natural lands for Burlington’s Royal Botanical Gardens.

“We’ve just been waiting for the immature one to graduate to adulthood,” he said. “In the interim they built a nest.”

Last year, the big birds moved to another pine tree in the area, so this year work crews cleared an area in a tree near a public viewing platform along the marsh’s boardwalk to encourage the birds to settle where naturalists could monitor them more easily.  But the eagles moved back to their original home last month, about half a kilometre from the closet vantage point.

“It’s nice to know they’re smarter than us,” Theijsmeijer said. He said no one really knows if the female has laid eggs yet, but bird watchers are keeping their fingers crossed.

“We’re pretty sure that if they were going to lay eggs it was in the past two weeks,” he explained. “So we’re looking at mid to late April to see little heads poking up in the nest.”

A hundred years ago, bald eagles were a common sight along Lake Ontario. But toxic pesticides slowly killed off most of the population.

“The water became polluted with DDT used in agriculture that washed off the land into the lake,” Theijsmeijer said. “The poison got into the fish, the birds ate the fish and it caused the shells of the birds to be thin and shatter. So we just ran out of bald eagles.”

DDT was banned in the United States in 1972 and in Canada in 1989, although its use had been restricted for more than a decade before that.  Theijsmeijer said that by 1980, only four bald eagle nests remained in southern Ontario.  He said there are now about 32 nests along the lower Great Lakes, including areas north of Toronto and near Peterborough.

“It’s been a slow but steady climb back,” he said. “We’re finally getting the big bird back to the big lake.”

The bald eagles at Cootes Paradise kept a low profile on Tuesday, hunkering down in their nest for long periods, making just a few forays out to sit in another tree before returning home.

“More often than not, they’re really not doing anything, unless they go hunting and you just see them circling,” Theijsmeijer said, manoeuvring an aluminum boat to give visitors a closer look."  He said he hopes efforts to clean up the area and make a nurturing habitat for the eagles will pay off. “Maybe 50 years from now the shoreline will be strewn with so many bald eagles that they’ll be commonplace once again.”


http://www.thestar.com/news/article/958893--bald-eagles-return-to-lake-ontario-shore

sheltiegirl:
Not sure if this is the right place but TPC can move it if I am wrong. And the story did not linger for long on the main page of the Toronto Star online but apparently birdy folk around Hamilton Ontario believe there is a breeding pair of bald eagles nesting in a marsh called Cootes Paradise . If this is true it will be the first eagles born on the north shore of Lake Ontario in 50 years. There are bald eagles in areas north of Toronto and near Peterborough 32 nests I think in total but this will be the first on the lake shore in a long time. I am not sure how to post a link and the story was so fleeting I had to use the search function on the main page to go back and check the details. Fingers crossed and I will keep watching for details. sg

Cammie:
Touch and go for wind-wounded eaglets

It’s touch and go for two bald eaglets rescued when their nest west of Hyde Park blew down in a wind storm Friday night.  The two eaglets, thought to be about two months old, survived a 15-metre fall but suffered leg fractures requiring surgery, said Brian Salt of Salthaven Wildlife Rehabilitation. The two birds are in a protected aviary at the Mt. Brydges facility. 

Salt said leg fractures are very serious injuries for raptors such as eagles. “Their legs and talons are like their guns.” He said one of the birds will require a pin to repair a leg fracture.  In recent years other young eagles have been rescued with similar injuries and didn’t survive, Salt said.

Local resident Don Fairbairn was the first to see the nest was down. He’s been watching it as long as it’s been there.  “First thing I do every morning at seven is look at the nest,” he said.  Fairbairn called a friend at the Ministry of Natural Resources for advice. The friend said the eaglets would almost certainly be dead. But Fairbairn hopped on his ATV and headed across the fields to see what he could do.  When he got to the site, he found the eaglets in a tangle of underbrush.

“The important thing was they were alive,” Fairbairn said. With mama and papa eagle circling menacingly overhead, Fairbairn gathered the eaglets under his arms — “just like you do with a chicken.”

Surgery for eagles is highly specialized and costly. Salthaven will pay for the surgery but is dependent on donations to provide such care.  Bald eagles have been making a comeback in southern Ontario, but the numbers are still low. It’s estimated there are 20 nesting pairs in southern Ontario. Only 28 eaglets fledged in 2008.

Local businessperson Charlie Frank has been watching the Hyde Park birds closely for years. He’s watched the nest through his binoculars every day.  A big part of his business, Hyde Park Feed and Country Store, is wild bird feed and he has a special concern for the fate of the eaglets. He’s erected a sign in front of his store on Gainsborough Rd. encouraging people to donate to Salthaven.

The eagles have been returning to the nest for three years. Each year they add more material to it. Salt wasn’t sure of its exact size and weight of the next but said “it was about the size of a small car.”

http://www.lfpress.com/news/london/2010/05/12/13927776-lfp.html#/news/london/2010/05/12/pf-13926936.html[/color]

Alison:
Sea eagle death in Kerry park brings total to 13

ANOTHER WHITE-TAILED sea eagle has been found poisoned in sheep-farming country in Kerry, bringing to 13 the number of birds lost since their release into the Killarney National Park three years ago.

Kites, falcons, eagles – golden and white-tailed – buzzards and other birds of prey reintroduced into Ireland have been lost in what the various bodies involved described in a joint statement yesterday as “a spate of poisoning”.  The latest bird found is the second male sea eagle in weeks to have been poisoned in the river Laune and Beaufort area near Killarney in the foothills of the Macgillycuddy’s Reeks, an area which eagles frequent in search of fish.  Both were poisoned by Carbofuran, a banned pesticide commonly used by farmers on dead carcasses to poison foxes and crows during the lambing season, laboratory tests revealed. They were about three years old.

Since their reintroduction, seven white-tailed sea eagles have been confirmed poisoned in Kerry, two are suspected of having been poisoned, one was shot and two others died from natural causes. A 13th eagle was shot in the North.  Just shy of a quarter of the eagles have now been wiped out.

Twenty more are due to be brought in from Norway this year as part of the five-year programme. The scientist in charge of the sea eagle project, Dr Allan Mee, said yesterday the continuing loss of eagles to poisoning had cast a shadow over the future of the ambitious programme.  There was huge support for the project among the public and it was strongly supported by tourism bodies. The problem rested with individual sheep farmers, according to Dr Mee, most of whom had now come around to the idea.

“The loss of a further two white-tailed eagles at this time is devastating . . . We know that eagles can thrive in Kerry if given the chance but indiscriminate poisoning is literally killing our chances of re-establishing a population here.”

In what has been described as the worst spate of poisoning in recent years, 10 protected birds of prey, including three red kites, two white-tailed eagles, a golden eagle, three buzzards and a peregrine falcon have been confirmed poisoned in the Republic. Two red kites and a peregrine were found dead in Wicklow, a third red kite released in Northern Ireland was found dead in Kildare, a golden eagle in Leitrim and buzzards in west Waterford, east Cork and Donegal (one of which recovered from poisoning). They were all poisoned by ingesting meat baits laced with Alphachloralose.

The Golden Eagle Trust is calling on the Department of Agriculture to initiate immediate farm inspections where poisonings occurred. The trust said the department had failed to ensure that farmers in receipt of direct payments from the EU for rural environmental protection and other schemes observe the law on the protection of birds of prey.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0504/1224269640141.html

Alison:
10 birds of prey found poisoned in Irish Republic

Ten protected birds of prey have been confirmed poisoned across the Irish Republic in recent weeks.

The birds included a golden eagle, as well as two red kites, two white-tailed eagles, three buzzards and a peregrine falcon.

One of the red kites had been released in Northern Ireland and was found dead in County Kildare.

The birds died after eating meat baits laced with pesticides, one of which is illegal in Ireland.

Two red kites and the peregrine were found dead in County Wicklow, the third red kite in Kildare, a golden eagle in County Leitrim, and buzzards in west Waterford, east Cork and County Donegal.

Within the last few weeks two white-tailed eagles were found dead near Beaufort, County Kerry.

Both eagles were said to be in excellent condition and had been surviving well in the wild for two or three years.

An investigation is being carried out by the Department of Agriculture and the Garda.

"The loss of a further two white-tailed eagles at this time is devastating," said Dr Allan Mee, manager of the White-tailed Eagle Reintroduction Project in Kerry.

"The older male could have been one of the first birds to breed in the wild in Ireland in over 100 years had it survived. Indiscriminate poisoning is literally killing our chances of re-establishing a population here," he added.

Fifty-five of the eagles have been released in Kerry since 2007. Thirteen of them have now been found dead, seven of them confirmed poisoned.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/8658193.stm

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