Jody Victor: If you look at my Eagle photo folder, you will notice all the pictures show a pair of Bald Eagles in flight or on the large branches of what looks to be, a dead tree. This type of area is perfect as a perch or nesting place for Bald Eagles. This tree sits directly across the road, 10 yards from the water's edge at our Sandusky Bay home. What a view we have had this past summer! Watching these big, beautiful beautiful birds fly, perch, dive, and generally cavort right in our front yard. One question the scientific community has wondered and asked, "Is there adequate habitat available for a robust Bald Eagle population in the Great Lakes?"
Habitat is defined as the food, water, shelter and space that an animal requires to survive. The availability of suitable habitat plays a critical role in regulating animal populations. Bald Eagles prefer forested, quiet sites near open water within a territory of one to three square miles, nesting in one of the tallest, mature trees in the area. But forest harvest and lakeshore development for agriculture, residences and recreation continue to deplete and degrade appropriate shoreline habitat.
Yet, eagles can demonstrate remarkable adaptability in the face of habitat pressures, nesting in locations that are subject to human disturbance or provide poor food supplies. For example, Bald Eagles have been observed nesting on the tower at Sandusky Airport here in Ohio.
It is not yet clear whether nesting in such atypical sites, with their related hazards for adult and juvenile birds, will have a negative long-term effect on the overall population. The unanswered question is whether the birds' adaptation to human interference and low quality nesting habitat will deplete or negatively influence the population. Hopefully that question will be answered as a yes, and our Bald Eagle pair will go on in the tree we observe them in and live for many years to come.