Mid-Winter Bald Eagle Survey

TO: Participants in New York's Annual Mid-Winter Bald Eagle Survey

FROM: Peter Nye

DATE: 26 November 2007

SUBJECT: The 2008 Survey

New York State will once again be participating in the national mid-winter bald eagle survey, representing our 29^th consecutive year of such surveys! While this national survey has been coordinated for many years by the Biological Resources Division of the U.S. Geological Survey, beginning in 2008, the survey will now be coordinated nationally by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers out of their San Francisco office, due to retirement of the USGS coordinator. This transition, however, will be seamless to us.

This year's survey will be from 2-16 January 2008 (inclusive), with target dates of 9-10 January. We hope to be conducting several aerial surveys over major portions of the state, mostly on the 9^th, and the closer to this day everyone can get out, the better. Our "lousy weather" dates if we cannot get in the air on that day are every day following until we get it done. For those of you who don't get paid to do this kind of stuff for a living and have real jobs, please try to survey as close to the 9 January date as possible; but getting out any time within the survey period would be valuable to us. The National target dates are the weekend of the 11^th and 12^th.

As usual, participation last winter was great here in New York, with nearly 100 observers participating. Thank you and we look forward to this continuing! Our count last winter was down significantly from our records of the past two winters, and was the lowest recorded number since 1999. We tallied only 324 total bald eagles in 2007, compared to 442 in 2006. We believe last years' low count was a reflection of the extremely mild winter we had leading up to the survey date; "winter" in New York, did not really hit until the latter half of January, thus extensive open water could be found not only statewide, but north of us in Canada (where many of our wintering eagles hail from) as well. With much open water, eagles have no need to move south to survive in winter. This is a trend we will likely see continue, as our planet continues to warm. According to statistics from the National Climatic Data Center, 2006 was the warmest year ever on record for the United States, a full 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the long-term average. Of course, as our resident eagle population continues to grow, our winter count numbers will be sustained somewhat, but these residents will make up a greater proportion of our wintering birds. Complete results for the 2007 count, broken down by region, are found at the end of this letter.

We continue to pursue our research and monitoring of several major populations of wintering eagles in New York, including capture, banding and satellite tracking. Our focus for wintering eagle research continues to be the Upper Delaware River, where we are involved in a multi-year study in partnership with the National Park Service (Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River). This study also includes breeding eagles in this area and their young, to define essential habitats used by eagles along the Upper Delaware. You can follow our winter eagle research on the Internet at Journey North or through our DEC website, by following the links on this page. A link to our annual statewide bald eagle report is also in the links at right, providing significantly more information on both wintering and breeding eagles in New York.

A PDF version of the blank standard reporting form for the 2008 survey is provided for your use. IMPORTANT: in addition to the standard information requested on the data form, please make sure you clearly identify the precise time and location of each eagle sighted, so that we may be able to determine overlapping or non-overlapping counts; an actual map with times noted would be extremely helpful.

Also, please pay particular attention to any leg bands (color, side, alphanumeric), radio antennas or wing tags birds could carry, and note these in detail on your report.

Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. Please return your results to me by 15 February so we can include them in our submission to the national effort by 15 March.

Thank you in advance for your participation, once again, and have fun!

Peter Nye
Wildlife Biologist II
Endangered Species Unit Leader
NYSDEC Division of Fish, Wildlife & Marine Resources

Annual Regional Summary:
Number of bald eagles observed* within major NYS wintering areas.

Area	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
Upper Delaware River (main stem)	109	41	28	114	93	23
Mongaup River	42	109	86	75	25	55
Hudson River (lower)	22	44	16	21	32	21
St. Lawrence River	19	17	45	31	42	16
Lake Champlain	-	-	-	-	44¹	73
Allegheny River	-	-	-	-	36¹	11²
All other areas*	143	143	188	200	170	131
Statewide Totals	335	354	363	441	442	324

* Numbers combine both aerial and non-duplicated counts from ground observers.
¹ First time aerial survey conducted here (helicopter).
² Six of these eagles not included in the total since observed outside the survey period.