Tuckahoe
03-24-2014, 18:38
http://www.vagazette.com/news/dp-nws-annual-eagle-census-20140321,0,4409344.story
Every year in late winter, three local men make like eagles — soaring 300 feet up, skimming the tops of towering old loblolly pines, diving and banking all along the James River.
They've done this for decades, piling into a cramped single-engine Cessna 172 for hours on end to document the heartbreaking decline and triumphant recovery of the bald eagle on this major tributary of the Chesapeake Bay.
It's a population that went extinct along the river for several years in the 1970s, wiped out by toxic chemicals. Today, it's resurged so well that the bay is, as one expert calls it, "by far the largest bald eagle population along the Atlantic Coast."
Every year in late winter, three local men make like eagles — soaring 300 feet up, skimming the tops of towering old loblolly pines, diving and banking all along the James River.
They've done this for decades, piling into a cramped single-engine Cessna 172 for hours on end to document the heartbreaking decline and triumphant recovery of the bald eagle on this major tributary of the Chesapeake Bay.
It's a population that went extinct along the river for several years in the 1970s, wiped out by toxic chemicals. Today, it's resurged so well that the bay is, as one expert calls it, "by far the largest bald eagle population along the Atlantic Coast."