Overwintering Bald Eagles At Foss & Sudbury Reservoirs

     

This winter, My main goal was to spend lots of time photographing bald eagles. I was hoping to do this along the Sudbury River, taking advantage of the fact that lakes and reservoirs would be freezing over as winter hit. In the past, this strategy has worked for me, and I could expect eagles at the river all winter. This year though, everything started to freeze like normal, and then we hit a period of warm rain. The eagles havent had to move yet. 

I knew of a nest nearby though, on an island, that was inactive this spring, but has been getting sightings again recently. On January 2nd, I took a drive to the reservoir, and found a spot to photograph from, near the island. No eagles yet. 

...I did however see plenty of waterfowl, some were species I havent seen in months, like common mergansers and this ring-necked duck...

           ...After around an hour of sitting on the shore, I saw something flapping, in the distance...

                                                                       Finally. An eagle.

           ...After a minute of circling around the reservoir, it set it's eyes of the island, and landed in one of the island's snags. The eagle was around 200 yards away, so my photos weren't too sharp, but my new lens allowed me to get plenty of identifiable photos of the perched eagle, of which this is probably the sharpest. I need to buy a tripod...

It perched in the tree for about fifteen minutes, before diving off it's branch, and flapping east, I'm guessing it was heading for Foss Reservoir. 

I left after it had disappeared on the horizon. On my drive home I realized there was also an eagle flapping around at Foss Reservoir. I guess the male and female each hunt one of the reservoirs, to avoid competition, but there was nowhere to park. For a few days it was pouring, but I forced myself to go back to the nest on Thursday, the 5th. As I passed Foss Reservoir, I saw an eagle perched on an island, and the one on the nest at the Sudbury Reservoir was there too, and perched in the same snag as last time...

Apparently this pair of eagles has been nesting here for a while, and they were first reported breeding here 11 years ago, in 2012. People estimate these eagles are between 14 and 16 years old now.

I watched it got darker out, But I went home early because I wasn't wearing enough layers for the freezing, rainy weather. The eagle took off breifly but then landed again. I'm assuming it spends the night there, because I contacted someone who says the eagle is always perched there as the sun rises.

On the way back home, I saw an eagle at Foss Reservoir again. On Saturday, I finally found a place to park, at a park near some abandoned train tracks, and walked along the track until I got to the reservoir. Foss Reservoir, I recently found out, has been partially drained temporarily to help kill off invasive Eurasian watermilfoil. The water level has gone down from usual by 10 feet. This helped me though, because the draining left behind a rocky beach that completely surrounded Foss Reservoir. This meant I could walk from the train tracks to anywhere along the side of the reservoir. The draining definately also helped to kill off the freshwater mussels, because the entire new beach crunched under my feet, there were so many...

A pair of mute swans were sleeping in a shallow area, but one of them (probably the male, because they are more aggressive) paddled over to shore, to check me out...

There were also a few hooded mergansers...

As I walked further down the beach, I started seeing eagles flapping around. Not close enough for a good photo, but close enough to be able to know for a fact they were eagles. There were AT LEAST 3 of them: 1 juvenile and 2 adults. The juvenile is around 2 years old, because it's head does have lighter coloring than its body. Juveniles have a brown body, speckled with white. They are better at blending in than adult eagles.

I watched them soaring in circles, mainly either leaving to fly down the beginning of the Sudbury River, or returning from there. When the reservoir freezes over, they're only going to be able to fish on the Sudbury River. As I got closer to where they were flying, I noticed a juvenile bald eagle with it's talons outstretched. A sign that it is preparing to dive for a fish...

    

...The eagle flapped off with a yellow perch in it's grip. Unlike osprey that dive into the water for fish, bald eagles avoid getting wet by leveling out at the last second of their steep dive to cleanly pluck their prey off of the water's surface.

Other birds were also catching yellow perch nearby, like this ring billed gull...

I kept following the beach, towards a patch of pine forest along route 9. All 3 eagles were clearly using the island, and the pine forest as a roosting area. As I snuck closer to the pine forest, I noticed an adult eagle headed for a spot in the canopy just 40 feet ahead of me. I looked up fast and took what in my opinion is my best ever photo of a bald eagle...

After a minute, it took off again, headed for the island, where it was joined by an eagle who i'm guessing is it's mate...

 

Then, behind them, I noticed a clump of sticks, in the canopy. Another eagle nest? My research afterward confirmed that yes I had found another bald eagle nest. I'm not sure whether or not it's still in active, but I guess I'll find out in May, when I go searching for eagle chicks...

UPDATE: 

This nest (the one at Foss Reservoir) raised 3 eaglets, while the nest on the sudbury reservoir unfortunately failed for unknown reasons. This photo was taken at Foss Reservoir in June...