A pair of bald eagles has established a successful nest in Concord for the first time in over a century, and Ellen Kenney has learned at least one thing: They don’t sound as majestic as they look.

“I was at Eastman Cove at the (Merrimack River Conservation Center) and I heard an eagle making a lot of noise, which is why I went down. I saw it strutting around like Foghorn Leghorn,” said Kenney, a Concord resident. “It was having a monolgue – kind of sounds like a seagull, actually.”

The bald eagle took an already dead fish from the river and ate it with considerable signs of enjoyment before heading off.

It’s likely, although not certain, that she saw one of the Capital City’s eagles, said Christian Martin, an eagle expert at New Hampshire Audubon. The pair is nesting near Horseshoe Pond, not too far from the Conservation Area.

A decade or two ago their appearance here would have been astonishing, but these days it’s almost expected.

“We’re in the middle of trying to determine how many breeding pairs in state this year. There’s at least 70 probably closer to 75, which is a huge change from 10-20-30 years ago. They’re everywhere from the seacoast to Pittsburg to Hinsdale. You name the lake, there’s probably a pair of bald eagles that utilizes it now,” Martin said.

Kenney, a teacher who described herself as “just a peson who spends a lot of time in the woods,” agreed at how the nation’s symbol has become more common.

“Now it’s getting to be if you’re driving down 393 there’s a chance one’s going to fly over your car,” she said.

Kenney frequently goes to the Conservation Area off Portsmouth Street on the east bank of the Merrimack River because of its beauty. She’s not alone: The Forest Society, which owns the property, is urging people to hike elsewhere because the trails can get so crowded that social distancing is difficult.

“It’s such a beautiful place this time of year and the diversity of wildlife I feel it’s greater there than most places,” she said. “I’ve been watching a mink family, and saw a fox this morning – it’s lovely.”

She sees an eagle often, although she doesn’t know if it’s the same eagle every time, and has watched interactions with other birds, especially red-tailed hawks.

“The hawks usually chase off the eagle,” she noted.

Bald eagles are becoming common enough in New Hampshire that interaction with other species is inevitable. That’s particularly true with other fish-eating birds like ospreys.

“Eagles will steal fish from ospreys,” said Martin. “There are two locations where bald eagles have taken over osprey nests or platforms that we built for ospreys, and are using them as their nest sites.”

Bald eagles sometimes prey on loon chicks, which have also become more common, Martin said.

“I would argue that we have three healthy populations – loon, osprey, bald eagle,” he said. “But think of the years of effort that state and federal and private organizations have put into that; legislation, habitat improvement, conservation of shoreline. It didn’t happen by accident.”

How common will bald eagles become here? Nobody knows.

“The chart of breeding population (of eagles) continues to rise; we haven’t seen the curve flatten out yet. Every 5 to 7 years we double our population,” he said. He pointed to the Connecticut River. “At first (nests) were 15 miles apart, then pairs moved in, so it was 7 miles, then pairs moved in. Now we’ve got a number of places where bald eagles are nesting less than 2 miles from each other.”

“We believe there’s a natural limit … but we don’t know what it is. Nobody was tracking the number of eagles in the state in the 1920s. We don’t have a baseline to go on.”

(David Brooks can be reached at 369-3313 or dbrooks@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @GraniteGeek.)]]>