Bald eagle release at Lake Monroe in 1988 still breeding

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) - Her name is C-43. She's 27 years old, and she's caused quite a stir for biologists and anyone interested in birds, especially bald eagles.

She's the oldest bald eagle known to be living along the shores of Lake Monroe, and was spotted and photographed this past spring and fall. Her "name" comes from the silver band on her left leg. She was born in Whitestone Harbor, Alaska, and was brought to Indiana on July 22, 1988, after she was removed from her nest as part of the reintroduction program begun in 1985 in Indiana.

In the spring, boaters photographed her with the band on her leg and a portion of the orange wing band she has worn since she was released at the lake. The photo also showed incubation patches, which meant she was raising eaglets.

The fall photos of C-43 were taken while she was eating a carp along the Lake Monroe shore. That meant she survived another year of raising chicks.

What has happened to C-43 since her first year at Lake Monroe isn't known, but biologists and wildlife specialists are able to piece together much of her story and that of the other bald eagles who are now flourishing not only at Lake Monroe but across all of Indiana and beyond.

The reintroduction program in Indiana began in 1985, when 5-week-old bald eagle chicks from Wisconsin and Alaska were brought to a special "hacking" tower in the Pine Grove area at Lake Monroe, which had been chosen over several other areas in the state as the best area to re-establish the birds.

The area was closed off to boaters and hikers and was called Eagle Bay. Even though the area was closed, it was close to a channel where boats passed by, letting the young chicks get used to hearing and seeing motorboats and people.

"When those young birds learn to fly, they imprint on this area as their base," said Rex Watters, wildlife specialist with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, who worked with the reintroduction program.

"Young eagles tend to come back and nest within 50 miles of their home base," Watters said, explaining that any eagle that learned to fly at Lake Monroe should then still be within Indiana.

The birds that were brought to Indiana came from nests with three chicks. Eaglets in a nest are not the same age. Often, the older ones will survive and the younger will not. Or there is one older, stronger eaglet and two younger chicks about the same size.

The odd chick out - whether older or younger - was taken from the nests and transported to Indiana, where chicks about the same size were placed in the same nest, Watters said. The birds were raised in hacking towers, which are enclosed cages with an artificial nest that is off the ground and predator-proof, until they were 10-11 weeks old, when they were released.

The first year, three birds from Wisconsin were raised until they were 11 weeks old.

"We kept them until (biologists) were really sure they could fly," Watters said. "Because they were so ready, they didn't stay on the property very long, only a couple of weeks."

The program continued through 1989 and brought 73 eaglets to Indiana. Each of the birds was tagged and tracked for a short time to ensure they were thriving.

By 1995, there were 11 successful Indiana nests with 17 eaglets fledged. In 2000, the number of nests in Indiana had increased to 23, with 16 successful nests fledging 35 eaglets.

In the early years of the program, some of the tagged eagles were tracked to upper New York state, Alberta, Canada, southern Mississippi and southern Texas, "and every place in between," according to Watters.

But some, including C-43, have continued to live near Lake Monroe.

"Speculation is that she's been an active nested on the property since she matured," Watters said. "It's likely if she originally mated with a male that was slightly older than she was. Then it's possible she's mated with a second male."

There are currently 17 nest sites at Lake Monroe and 15 were active in 2015, Watters said. "We lose a few and gain a few every year," he said.

Tracking bald eagles at Lake Monroe and elsewhere in Indiana is now more than state officials can handle. At Lake Monroe, interpretive naturalist Jill Vance trains volunteers each fall to help as citizen scientists. The volunteers help look for bald eagles and their nests from Dec. 1 through March 30.

"We only do it in the winter months," Vance said. "That's peak time for the eagles. It's easier to find them."

It's also the time of year when there are more bald eagles in Indiana. The resident bald eagles stay, and bald eagles from colder climes migrate to Lake Monroe and other Indiana places to spend the winter.

Across Indiana, there are currently 250-300 breeding pairs of bald eagles, according to Allisyn-Marie Gillet, bird biologist with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.

"We stopped monitoring their nests in much more detail in 2007 because (Indiana) met their conservation goals," Gillet said. Those goals were set when the reintroduction program began and were to achieve a 60 percent success rate with all bald eagle nests in the state.

Even now, Gillet said, the southern half of Indiana has more bald eagles. "A lot of them like to nest around rivers, and a lot of the rivers are in southern Indiana."

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Source: The (Bloomington) Herald-Times, http://bit.ly/1POws3o

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Information from: The Herald Times, http://www.heraldtimesonline.com