A bald eagle uses a broken tree trunk as a perch one day last week as it scopes out the area near the Carpenter Dam on the Fox River in Carpentersville.
The skies above Carpenter Dam on the Fox River were filled with gulls, ducks, Canadian geese and a solitary heron. But that’s not what drew the group gathered by the water’s edge Saturday morning.
They were on the hunt for bald eagles, and they weren’t disappointed.
“The eagles must have gotten the memo,” quipped Steve Byers, chair of the Friends of Hackmatack National Wildlife Refuge.
Every January, eagles follow Illinois waterways as they head south for warmer temperatures and the easier prey they can find along the way, especially around dams.
For the last six years, Byers’ group has joined with Friends of Moraine Hills State Park, Illinois Department of Natural Resources, McHenry County Audubon Society and McHenry County Conservation District for a program called “In Search of Eagles,” in which they help people spot the migrating birds at the Carpentersville, Algonquin and McHenry dams.
McHenry Audubon Society Vice President Lisa Maier said they had already spotted about 18 bald eagles by 9:30 a.m.
Read more here. The location of the Carpenter Dam can be found here.
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