Flying With the Eagles By Bob McDaniel
A couple of years ago, I heard that the World Bird Sanctuary
was looking for volunteer pilots to fly “eagle census flights” along the
Mississippi River. It sounded like fun, but work and family commitments didn’t
leave much time for volunteer flying. The Sanctuary put out a call for pilots
again last fall and I sent them my name and qualifications. Thanks to Carmelo
Turdo’s AeroExperience blog, plenty of pilots stepped forward this year and
they would be calling them in the order they volunteered. My name finally made
it to the top of the list in February and I got the call to go flying.
The flight was planned for Friday, Feb. 13th, which turned
out to be a nice day for eagle watching. Although it was quite cold, only 19
degrees at show time, the relatively calm winds and high overcast cloud deck
made for a perfect eagle counting flight.
They only make census flights early in the morning, when the
eagles are most active, looking for their breakfast. That required rolling out
of bed at 0600 to get to the airport and have the plane ready to go by 0730. I
met Jeffrey Meshach, Director of the World Bird Sanctuary, his assistant and an
intern at Ideal Aviation where we did a quick safety briefing and discussed the
route of flight and their counting procedures.
We were in the air before 0800 and headed toward the locks
at Alton where we would begin our count. We dropped down to 700 feet above the
water and flew over the Illinois side of the river all the way to a point about
10 miles north of Quincy, Illinois. My job was to closely follow the varying
contour of the winding riverbank, staying over the water about 200 feet from
the riverbank, while maintaining a speed of no more than 90 to 100 mph. That
meant throttling way back and almost constantly changing the bank angle to
maintain the proper position along the winding river.
Preflight planning the night before included precise fuel
burn and weight and balance planning, to ensure we were one pound under my
Skyhawk’s maximum gross weight, while carrying enough fuel to complete the
flight with adequate reserves. I also studied the route and made a log of ATIS,
AWOS, Approach Control, Tower, and Unicom frequencies for all the nearby
airports on both sides of the river along the way. Although we touched the edge
of St. Louis Regional’s airspace and were very close to the traffic pattern at
St. Charles, we had no air traffic conflicts as everyone else was flying well
above our cruising altitude.
Of course, at that altitude, you must keep a constant
watchful eye for engine out landing areas, remembering that in some areas the
river bluff on our side of the river was as much as 500 feet above the river
and heavily wooded. Sometimes the best choice was on our side of the river and,
at other times, the best choice was a glide to the flat muddy bottom land on
the opposite side. There’s not much room for error when the river’s over a mile
wide and your power off gliding distance is barely a mile from 700 feet without
a headwind.
Very quickly after reaching the census area, the observers
began calling out eagle sightings while the director marked them down on the
very detailed river terrain map he carried with him on a clipboard. Special
attention was given to nests they had observed on previous flights that had been pre-marked on
their maps. They marked every location where an eagle was spotted and they were
categorized as adults or juveniles and flying or perched. I spotted five eagles
that were flying directly in front of my windscreen on three separate occasions.
All of those moved gracefully off to our side and gave us a casual glance as we
flew by them. We only had to take evasive action once to avoid a large flock of
snow geese flying directly in front of us at our exact same altitude. In
addition to several large flocks of geese, we saw many flocks of ducks, gulls,
pelicans, and even a large flock of wild turkeys on the ground below us.
As I mentioned earlier, the high overcast made for smooth
flying conditions. However, when we were flying alongside the steep river
cliffs and adjacent rolling hills, they did create some gentle rolling
mechanical turbulence. Those gentle rotors, accompanied by the constantly
changing bank, took their toll on the intern who was a first-time flyer. About
an hour into the 3-1/2 hour flight, she asked how much longer we would be
flying. I took the hint and handed her a “sick sack” which she proceeded to
fill about 10 minutes later. It’s rather difficult to count eagles with your
head inside a white plastic bag. Fortunately, she only assumed that position
twice more during the flight.
After flying along the Illinois side of the river for 153
miles, we made a gentle turn toward the Missouri side of the river and
continued the count as we wound our way back down the river toward Alton. By
the time we reached the end of the census area, we had counted 385 eagles, with
each of their positions accurately mapped, and had logged 3.4 hours of flying
time. Although it had been a long time since I had made a flight of that
duration, the time seemed to pass much faster. There was certainly nothing
boring about the flight. It was a very enjoyable day.
The World Bird Sanctuary has been doing aerial surveys of
bald eagles along the Mississippi River throughout the winter for over 30
years. The Sanctuary is located in Valley Park, Missouri, on the opposite side
of the road from Lone Elk Park. It is open from 8 to 5 every day of the year
except Thanksgiving and Christmas, with free entry and free parking. There’s
something there for everyone with free seasonal shows, nature trails,
educational programs and picnic pavilions. Their live displays of bald eagles,
owls, hawks, falcons, vultures, parrots, reptiles and other birds and critters
are popular with all ages. Visit their web site at www.worldbirdsanctuary.org
for more information.
