The Wildlife Center of Virginia will release a bald eagle on Wednesday, December 12 at 11 a.m. at the Land’s End Wildlife Management Area, near Port Conway in King George County.

The release is free and open to the public. Individuals who wish to attend are asked to RSVP to the Center at lkegley@wildlifecenter.org. Participating in the release will be Ed Clark, President and co-founder of the Wildlife Center.  Also expected are Doug Domenech, the Secretary of Natural Resources, and Bob Duncan, Director of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

On November 11, an animal control officer in King George County picked up a mature bald eagle – an eagle that had reportedly been fighting with another eagle.  The injured eagle was taken to a local permitted rehabilitator.  The eagle was admitted to the Wildlife Center on November 13 and was assigned Patient Number 12-2554 – the 2,554^th patient admitted to the Center in 2012.

Upon admission, Dr. Rich Sim and the veterinary treatment team examined the Bald Eagle, thought to be a male. The eagle’s right elbow was bruised; the eagle was placed on a course of anti-inflammatories and pain medications.  The bird showed steady improvement; it was moved to a small outdoor enclosure on November 16 and to a large flight pen on Thanksgiving Day.  The Center’s rehabilitation staff has been exercising the eagle in the flight pen, gradually building up the bird’s stamina.  The eagle is flying well; after reviewing results from blood work done on December 10, Center veterinarians have cleared #12-2554 for release.

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The Wildlife Center of Virginia is planning back-to-back bald eagle releases this week, one of which is just a short drive for Richmonders. If you’ve never been to a bald eagle release, they’re really neat events. Young kids, esepcially, seem to get a kick out of it. On Wednesday, August 1, and again on Thursday, August 2, the Center plans to release juvenile bald eagles that have been treated at the Center since May. Both of these releases will be open to the public.

The two bald eagles to be released are:

Bald Eagle #12-0992. This young eagle was found on the ground in Washington D.C. on May 24. Admitted to the Wildlife Center the following day, the eagle was thin and dehydrated. Bald Eagle #12-0992 will be released on Wednesday, August 1 at 11:00 a.m. at Mason Neck State Park in Fairfax County. Those attending the release should meet at the Park Visitor’s Center at 11:00 a.m.

Bald Eagle #12-0744. Admitted on May 10, this Bald Eagle was rescued by a DGIF biologist from the Hog Island Wildlife Management Area in Surry County, Virginia. The eagle was thin and initial blood work suggested an infection. The release of Bald Eagle #12-0744 will be on Thursday, August 2 at 10:30 a.m. at Berkeley Plantation near Richmond. Release site directions can be found here.

Both of these releases are open to the public. To assist The Wildlife Center with a head count, please email ksluiter@wildlifecenter.org if you plan on attending one, or both, releases!

Credit: Wil Loy

Check out this pic of a barred owl in Forest Hill Park. I was mountain biking there yesterday with Wil Loy and Jeff Jennings. We’d crossed the concrete bridge over Reedy Creek, going west (uphill) approaching the switchbacks. Jeff was in the lead and I was behind him when this bird took off from the ground right next to him. At first it looked like a hawk, but when it landed in a tree maybe 10 yards away, we quickly realized it was an owl.

We sat there for 10 minutes taking pictures and just watching it. It watched us right back. None of us had ever seen an owl do that — just sit there in the middle of the day so close to humans. We figured it must have had a kill on the ground where it took off from and wasn’t going to go very far without it.

Call it a little trail magic and put it on the very long list of why Richmond’s urban parks are so cool.

Credit: Jesse Peters/Backlight

In today’s T-D I offer my take on what it could mean for Richmond to win Outside Magazine’s “Best Town Ever” contest. This year the focus of the contest is on cities with a strong relationship with the river (or rivers) running through them. Outside teamed up with the non-profit advocacy group American Rivers to whittle a list of 80 or so cities/towns down to the 10 finalists. In addition to Richmond, the other finalists are Nevada City, Calif., Hood River, Ore., Nashville, Tenn., Asheville, N.C., Ithaca, N.Y., Milwaukee, Boise, Idaho, Missoula, Mont., and Durango, Colo.

Voting is being conducted on Facebook through July 10. You can vote once a day, every day. You can also post comments and upload your favorite pictures, which is just as important as voting since “enthusiasm” is a component of the final decision. The winning city will be featured on the front of the October issue of Outside — the magazine’s 35th anniversary issue.

As of this writing, Richmond was way out in the lead in both votes (close to 2,000) and enthusiasm (363 comments, dozens upon dozens of pics). Nevada City, Calif. is currently in second with 450 votes. It would be pretty cool to see the River City get some credit for being the incredible outdoor recreation destination it already is.

Tomorrow, the Wildlife Center of Virginia will be releasing a bald eagle not too far from here. If you’ve never seen an eagle release, it’s quite a show, and well worth the approximately one-hour drive this one would take to get to. I went to a bald eagle release the Wildlife Center put on last year at Westover Plantation. There were over a thousand people there watching four birds be set free after months of rehab at the center. Very cool stuff.

If you have the time and inclination, here’s the info on tomorrow’s release:

On Thursday, June 7, the Center will be releasing a bald eagle.  This immature bird – believed to be a three-year-old eagle – was found on its back near a road in King George County and was admitted to the Center on May 18.  Center veterinarians think it is likely that this eagle was hit by a car, although it sustained no fractures.  The eagle has been in the Center’s outdoor flight pens and has demonstrated that it is ready to go back out into the wild.   The eagle will be released by Ed Clark on Thursday at 11:30 a.m. at the Rappahannock River Valley National Wildlife Refuge near Warsaw. 

It is estimated that the bald eagle population of North America numbered about half a million before European settlement.  With the loss of habitat, shooting, and the effects of DDT and other pesticides, the U.S. eagle population plummeted.  In 1977, there were fewer than 50 bald eagle nests in Virginia.  Today, the bald eagle population in Virginia is on the rebound.  There are now more than 1,000 active bald eagle nests in the Commonwealth. 

Five-day-old red-cockaded woodpecker

Just over an hour south of Richmond, off Route 460 in Sussex county, The Nature Conservancy owns a 3,200-acre tract called Piney Grove. The pine-savanna habitat is home to the the northernmost breeding population of red-cockaded woodpeckers in the U.S. The 44 or so birds at Piney Grove are also the only RCWs (a federally endangered species since 1970) in Virginia. I had the chance to go down there Monday morning to join some scientists with TNC and the Center for Conservation Biology as they attempted to band the recently-hatched chicks for further study. Piney Grove and the RCWs will be the subject of my Friday column, but I thought I’d pass this pic along now. It’s just too cool not to share.

One neat feature of Piney Grove, unlike some TNC properties, is that public has access. There’s an interpretive trail, the Constance Darden Nature Trail (open from from February through October) that anyone can use to get an overview of TNC’s work at the preserve “to restore pine-savanna habitat for the benefit of endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers and myriad other plants and animals.”

It’s an easy trip down Route 460 from Richmond and absolutely worth the drive.

Photo: Lee Walker/DGIF

If the loss of the T-D’s eagle cam has you down — or if you just think spying on birds is fun — you might check out the peregrine falcon cam set up by the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. The rare adult peregrines have nested on a 21st-story ledge at Riverfront Plaza, 901 E. Byrd Street for a few years. Three falcon chicks emerged from eggs last week, so most of the cam shots are of the mother tending to the chicks. Colleague Rex Springston will have a story in the T-D soon.

Area birders may remember that a single peregrine chick died last yearwhen it flew into a window of a nearby building on its first flight. Let’s hope these three find more luck navigating the downtown highrises. And, if you’re interested, the DGIF website has a lot of great information on peregrine falcon recovery efforts across the state. Here’s a bit on the Richmond pair: “Since 2006 the birds have nested on the west tower of the Riverfront Plaza. The pair continues to be productive, having produced 33 eggs and 26 chicks between 2003 and 2010. Fifteen of these have successfully fledged in Richmond. The pair has also contributed chicks to hacking efforts in the mountains, including 2 chicks released at Breaks Interstate Park and 5 at Shenandoah National Park. Two of the Richmond-produced birds have gone on to become breeders in nearby states.”

If you’re into birds, or even if you’re not but you have some time to burn downtown, this is the time of year to start keeping an eye on the great blue heron rookery in the James River.

Jim Alexander lives not far from the rookery, which is mostly on Vauxhall Island, near Pipeline Rapid. As Alexander writes, “quality viewing is had from along the North bank between 12th St. and 14th St. Stand on the overlook, walk along the inside of the flood wall, venture out onto the pipeline walking grate, or stoop through the rail down onto the river bank.”

The herons are in the process of fixing up their nests for mating and then laying eggs. Some have already begun mating. On February 26, Alexander sent this update: “Gorgeous morning for Great Blue Heron rookery watching. At 7:15 AM, I counted 74 birds in 25+ pairs. About 10 are settled in their nest on eggs – several are nest refurbishing – and a few courting. My count over the past weeks has been maxing at 58, so I must have caught them before they went out hunting for the day. Perfect low morning light for viewing. They started arriving the 1st week of Jan., with about 10 by week end. 1 stayed through the winter. No egrets or osprey as yet. We have about 12 more heron than we did on this day last year, yet there remains a surplus of nests.”

Since then, T-D environment reporter Rex Springston told me he and his wife saw a pair of ospreys down there as well.

The Friends of James River Park and Richmond Audubon Society are partnering to offer heron rookery tours on Saturdays in March. Check the Richmond Outside events calendar on those days for more information.

The 15th annual Great Backyard Bird Count starts this Friday and runs through Monday. If you’ve never heard of the GBBC, here’s a description from the official website:

The Great Backyard Bird Count is an annual four-day event that engages bird watchers of all ages in counting birds to create a real-time snapshot of where the birds are across the continent. Anyone can participate, from beginning bird watchers to experts. It takes as little as 15 minutes on one day, or you can count for as long as you like each day of the event…Participants count birds anywhere for as little or as long as they wish during the four-day period. They tally the highest number of birds of each species seen together at any one time. To report their counts, they fill out an online checklist at the Great Backyard Bird Count website.

If you’re into birds, you probably already know about the GBBC. But if you’re the kind of person that wonders about the birds that flit through your backyard — maybe you put out feeders but don’t know what’s eating from it — the GBBC really is a fun way to learn more. All you need is a good bird ID guide, and those are plentiful on the Internet. The GBBC is also a great way to get kids into birds.