C-Seg; Bald Eagle

This weekend, and every weekend over the next several months, bird watchers across the state will be out in full force, graving the cold with their binoculars and field guides and searching for bald eagles. That's because Oklahoma is one of the top ten states for winter eagle viewing. About 85 bald eagles live here year round and each winter, they're joined by close to 1,000 more that migrate down from colder northern lakes. The Oklahoma Wildlife Department has organized a series of viewing events at parks and reservoirs across the state throughout the winter. KGOU attended one of those events recently at Lake Thunderbird State Park. It's about 10 a.m. on a Saturday and there are about a dozen people standing on the edge of the lake. It's kind of chilly, there's a bit of frost still covering the grass and some thin fog over the water. Park Naturalist Julie Tarver is serving as the guide today.

She's been doing this for many years so she knows all the regular spots to look for eagles. Today we get lucky and see an eagle right off the bat. A big black blob over there in the tree, that's an adult bird. Oh wow. Oh yeah, you have a real good view of him in there. He's just sort of perched on a branch looking around back and forth. Looks just like you'd seen a photograph. Without binoculars, it just looks like a tiny black spot off in the distance. And if you didn't know this was a place where eagles usually land, you'd never know to look there. The bald eagle has a certain significance for many of the bird watchers because it's a threatened species and the national symbol. But for some of the people gathered at Lake Thunderbird on this morning, it has an even deeper meaning. My name's Angel Ann Bales. I'm from the absentee Shawnee tribe out here at Little Lex. My secret story about the eagle is about when we first met death and we went out there and there were no tracks around the person.

And so eventually they figured it out that it had to have been a bird, they did it. And so every single bird came out and had to present themselves of why they didn't do it. And eventually it was found out that the bird had carried death with him was the owl. And the eagle said that he would always fly around us and protect us from death. So the eagle is for our people protector. Robert, whose Navajo says that his tribe's story is a little bit different. The story I heard was the eagle was a messenger of prayers. And the reason why they used it is a messenger of prayers because of all the birds that flew the highest. And so it was closer to the heavens than all the other birds were. He says the Navajo have a traditional ceremony where they dress in elaborate regalia made from eagle feathers and they dance around mimicking the flight and hunting habits of the eagle.

People like Robert, Angel, and frequent eagle watcher, Robin Moser say there's just something kind of magical about bald eagles. It's exciting, it's exhilarating. You just can't understand why these people are rolling their eyes at you. You've never experienced anything as when that little baby eagle pops its head at for the first time and you see him. You know, waiting to be fed. You see the tower? Go halfway down the brush and there's just a big white spot. And then you can zone in on him and tell it to bird. For a list of statewide eagle viewing events, visit the website of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation at www.wildlifedepartment.com. I'm KGOU News Director Scott Gurion.