I’ve been out and about quite a bit the past few weeks looking for bald eagles and I from what I have noticed, well, to put it bluntly, most of them have seemingly disappeared.
A few weeks ago, I was counting between 15-20 bald eagles at Farmington Bay and a regular handful at the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge each time I visited either location.
But for some strange reason the past couple of weeks the bald eagles have literally disappeared from my regular bird-watching hotspots.
Farmington Bay has had almost no bald eagle action during my visits the past week and I have seen only 1 or 2 on the bird refuge in Brigham City as well.
Today, however, I found where at least some of the eagles have been hiding.
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On an impromptu trip to Antelope Island this morning, I was greeted by a dozen bald eagles standing out on the ice near a massive flock of ducks perched on the frozen lake a few hundred yards northwest of the marina.
Bald eagles hunt for and eat ducks during the winter so it only stands to reason when I found the ducks, I would also find the eagles.
Thousands of ducks sit on the open saltwater during the winter months and that seemingly is attracting some of the missing bald eagles.
Unfortunately, at least from a photography perspective, however, the eagles were much too far away for any hopes of a decent photograph so I apologize for the blurred images on this blog post.
I haven’t given up on Farmington Bay and the Bear River Bird Refuge just yet but today did answer some questions for me as to why I haven’t been seeing very many bald eagles this winter, especially on Farmington Bay where last year I counted over 50 eagles at one time during a trip in late January.
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The latter part of January and through the middle of February is what I have seen to be the very best time of year here in Utah to view the bald eagles so we are still just getting into the peak season.
A lot of it does rely upon the weather and how cold it gets though, eagle watching is better when it is extremely cold so, hopefully, the weather will cooperate this year with regards to winter bald eagle viewing along the Wasatch Front.
I hope that helps anyone who has been out lately and not having much luck finding the wintering bald eagles at Farmington Bay WMA.
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