Hi all:

What a month.  Our Harrison Mills eagles have returned earlier and in bigger numbers than ever before.  I can only hope the fish carcasses last.  If you have not been watching the Chehalis Tower cams you have been missing a world class spectacle.

Fraser Valley Bald Eagle Festival:    Then of course we have been preparing for the Fraser Valley Bald Eagle Festival -- and all the Festival volunteers and so many of our HWF volunteers made incredible contributions and the whole event seems to have been a great success.  A "highlight" was the loss of electricity just as I was about to present my PowerPoint presentation.  No electricity, no projector or PowerPoint.  I carried on with a "talk" -- unillustrated and it seemed to go over well.

We had a special pair of guests this year -- Thor and Dorte Forslev, the Grandfather of all Bald Eagle Festivals -- his Brackendale / Squamish BE Festival will celebrate it's 27 year this January.  We were so pleased to have him honor our Festival.  The past few years, due to a major downturn in returning salmon in their river system, few salmon have returned to spawn and few eagles have appeared.  I am certain we have carried-fed most of his birds over the past few years.  The Squamish River this year is showing good salmon returns so their eagles will likely return.

 

A young bald eagle is released back to the wild as thousands of eagles - and people - gather for the Fraser Valley Bald Eagle Festival

Our thanks to GlobalBC for providing the link so we can include this video on our website. 

The Harrison River is on track to break its own world record for bald eagles — if the crush of humanity does not intervene.

With the annual Fraser Valley Bald Eagle Festival less than a week away, the raptors are arriving in unprecedented numbers, but so are hordes of bird watchers seeking a close-up look.

Read the rest of the story here: