MANHATTAN, Kan.—The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at Tuttle Creek Lake will sponsor a free Eagle Day for an impressive 26th year on January 4.
The day will start at 9 a.m. at the Manhattan Fire station at Kimball and Denison with an overview of eagle nesting in Kansas. This will be followed by a live raptor program featuring live hawks and owls and a mounted bald eagle.
The highlight of the morning will be a free bus tour through areas near Tuttle Creek Lake where knowledgeable bird watchers from the Northern Flint Hills Audubon Society will share information about eagles and help people view them. The Corps will furnish binoculars and spotting scopes. A large nest on an island in River Pond State Park is clearly visible and will be one of the stops on the bus tour.
Viewers should dress appropriately for the weather and bring binoculars and spotting scopes if they have them. The program is free and open to the public.
This has been a popular program with an average attendance of 160 people the past several years, many of them youngsters who have been fascinated by the birds and the facts about them.
There will also be an Eagle Day at Milford Nature Center on Saturday, January 18.
The bald eagle was adopted as our national symbol in 1782. At that time, there were as many as 50,000 nesting pairs in the lower 48 states.
In 1967, they were declared an endangered species because there were only about 2,000 birds total with an estimated 417 nesting pairs. But their population in the lower 48 states has rebounded remarkably to more than 35,000 birds with more than 10,000 nesting pairs, some of which live around Tuttle Creek Lake.
Additional sponsors of this event include the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism, and Manhattan Convention and Visitors Bureau. Refreshments for the program are sponsored by the Tuttle Creek Lake Association. Bus service is sponsored by the Tuttle Creek Lake Association and the Northern Flint Hills Audubon Society.
For more information, contact Tuttle Creek Lake at (785) 539-8511, x3167. For information about the Milford Eagle Day event, call (785) 238-5323.
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