chapter 331

Bald Eagle

11/4/2013

the allegra connection

This will be an ongoing project since I've discovered a Bald Eagle nest just a 3 mile drive from home, or one mile as the eagle flies. A tad obsessive, but they are not as abundant as in Alaska. I sneak up to the nest on State owned nature land to photograph the 2 adult and 2 juvenile birds. It turns out the larger female Eagle above likes to search for rodents on a perch on this dead American Elm of the adjoining Trade Winds Farm. This becomes a more involved story, as is often the case.

It turns out this farm is run by Agatha D'Ambra who is on the elite show horse circuit hoping to become an Olympian. Udiana has been a favorite horse. Winters can be spent in Wellington, FL with the Madonna and Bill Gates crowd. I believe I also captured her years ago riding horses in my 2009 tow path video.

I had wondered who lived in his nearby house when I photographed their live Llama and statues of Lion and Moai. Agatha's dad is Tom D'Ambra multi-millionaire inventor of the allergy drug Allegra and President and CEO of AMBRI.

I have several eagle pictures in the above folder and will be adding more throughout the years ahead. Hard to get close enough for good photographs. Most of these are taken from 200 yards away. One needs to go the SLR route for really good stuff. The adult male is smaller than the female and tends to be the one to feed the 2 juveniles which are nearly as big as he. They typically choose the tallest White Pine tree for a nest near water for their meals of fish.

They have a few favorite trees to perch on. They'll grab a fish from the river and bring it up to this Black Locust branch and feed the juveniles or sit for an hour looking for prey.

Previously attended retired Peter Nye's lecture. He may have had the most to do with the eagles successful reintroduction back into New York. NYSDEC Bald Eagle program. They brought back eaglets from Alaska and placed them into nests. Now we have perhaps more eagles than we had back in the 1800's.

Met a local photographer who has been tracking the couple from 5 years back when they nested on the other side of the river. He has photos of the leg bands on both adults. The male is from NY and the female is from western Mass. National Eagle banding program.

Dad back when it was legal to hunt eagles in the 30's...

The Bald (and later Golden) Eagle Protection Act wasn't implemented until 1940. Prior to that Alaska even had a bounty on Bald Eagles killing 100,000 of them.

Nat Geo Bald Eagles video