Saturday February 5, 2011: Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin

There be eagles here!

I saw the weekend forecast on Friday, and decided conditions would never be more favorable for eagle-watching in the famous winter roosting area by Prairie du Sac and Sauk City, Wisconsin. Texted my sister if she was interested in going along, and got an enthusiastic yes for this trip.

There is a bus tour of hot viewing spots run by volunteers from the Ferry Bluff Eagle Council each Saturday, which we took advantage of. Very informative for people unfamiliar with the area, and even helped me as I have visited here many times and still did not know the best viewing places.

A pleasant treat happened when my sister and I arrived into town about 40 minutes before the bus tour time.  Decided we had plenty of time to visit the public viewing blind by a downtown parking lot along the riverfront, and discovered that a long-time family friend an mentor was already there watching the birds. Had a wonderful visit, saw a few eagles perched on trees, then drove across town to catch the bus tour.

Here are my photo highlights of the tour. I only wish that the skies were more partly cloudy instead of overcast at that time. Did the best I could hand-holding my camera for all of these photos.

There were easily multiple-dozen birds to be seen at 3 locations over a 90 minute tour. What I have read is that there are over 200 eagles roosting in this general area of the lower Wisconsin River this winter. They come here each winter because there is a hydroelectric dam that keeps the water from freezing over here and the electric turbines stun the fish a bit (sound frequency energy in the water) to make them easy pickings for the eagles. Same combination that attracts fishermen during the summer months as a hotspot for angling.