There’s some logic to the bald eagles congregating at Saganashkee Slough the last week or so.
It’s thawing frozen gizzard shad, most likely.
Last week, Mark Kasick sent a beautiful photo of an eagle flying at Saganashkee, which became Wild of the Week on Sunday.
Sondra Katzen and Dave Derk were driving by Saganashkee, a Forest Preserves of Cook County water in the Palos Preserves, on Sunday when he spotted more than a dozen eagles on the ice.
“Bunch of immatures, which is great to see,” emailed Katzen, who noted Derk counted 14 on ice and she another flying and another in a tree.
On Saturday at the Wild Things conference in Rosemont, I bumped into Jim Phillips, a fisheries biologist for the FPCC, who said it appeared the eagles were going for dead shad as the ice thaws. Gizzard shad often die over winter. Eagles, while majestic, are also thieves and scavengers.
The numbers aren’t as impressive, but Sidney Jones documented a pair of eagles Feb 18 while at Steelworkers Park on Chicago’s southeast side.
For those of us old enough to remember eagles careening toward extinction, all this remains a historic switch.