BLOOMINGTON — The headliners perched on a distant branch across a stretch of open water on Monroe Lake, looking regal, as they usually do as their main job.
One by one, bundled-up people gazed through telescopes seemingly powerful enough for close-up views of the planets.
This duo of partnered bald eagles were the stars of the show, though, the main attractions, whether they knew it or not, over the last several days of January when all birds were feted but eagles were truly celebrated.
The Indiana Department of Natural Resources program was titled Eagles Over Monroe. It was an event taking note of how the once-endangered national bird has made a species comeback.
“Things have definitely changed,” said DNR interpretive naturalist Jill Vance, who oversaw the program. “We are proud.”
Volunteers lugged high-caliber scopes to the edge of land at the Paynetown State Recreation Area at Monroe, at 10,750 acres the state’s largest body of water.
As in the rest of the United States, eagles were often revered over the last couple of centuries, yet also were mistreated, came close to extinction and in one of the nation’s great conservation success stories rebounded in plentiful numbers, Monroe being one of the strongholds.
One visitor was Joe Bradley, 71, a retired engineer from Brownstown. He and wife Julie have a combined birder life list of sightings. Asked if he is an eagle fan, he said, “Not the Philadelphia Eagles,” the football team that recently competed in the Super Bowl.
Other eagles, yes, and just having the chance to see them in the wild made the approximately 44-mile drive worthwhile.
“I wanted to check out the eagles,” Bradley said. “Well, it’s our national bird. This is such a resource close to home. It’s just so easy to show up.”
The Monroe program consisted of visitors taking self-guided tours of the grounds to look for a wide variety of birds that can winter near the lake, including, geese, ducks, swans, gulls, sandpipers, loons, owls, hawks, falcons, blue jays, crows and more. A beginning birder could jump-start a life list just by hanging out at Monroe. Still, as one self-guided, it was wise to be mindful of signs warning “Road ends in water.”
Also offered were lectures on Indiana’s cranes, sandhill and endangered whooping cranes. Plus, Vance led watchers on a virtual tour of the Raptors Rise Rehabilitation Center in Bedford with founder Lola Nicholson.
The theme of the rehab center is “We are so glad you give a hoot.”
Operating since 2018, the center tries to nurse birds, such as owls, hawks, vultures, falcons and eagles, back to sufficient health to be returned to the wild. If veterinarians cannot fix broken wings or other damage, often incurred in accidents with automobiles, the wounded stay at the center as educational birds.
Some 101 birds were treated in 2022. Among the scrumptious items on the menu to keep weights up are mice, small snakes, grasshoppers, toads and frogs.
Some residents are chicks rescued after falling from nests. Vance said lumber men can prevent some chicks being put at risk.
“Avoid nesting season if you can,” she said of felling trees. “Check those trees before taking them down.”
Despite the curiosity of 30 viewers, it may be the eagles’ lure trumped interest in other birds.
Older viewers lived through some of the eagle’s checkered survival history. Unlike an event of this nature where people could merely drop by to see eagles, there was a time when they were growing up it seemed a given the bird would become extinct. New generations would never have an expectation of seeing eagles in the wild.
Nancy Lightfoot of Bloomington, a volunteer who brought a spotting scope so other could see eagles, grew up in Madison, Wisconsin.
“My father drove us to the Wisconsin River so we could see the eagles before they were gone,” she said.
A major element in the recovery of eagles was Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring” in 1962, which demonstrated the harm pesticides were doing to the environment and birds. Between 1985 and 1989, using birds from Wisconsin and Alaska, Indiana began to restore eagles to the Hoosier State at Monroe Lake.
“That just reminds me what we can do,” said Lightfoot, who said she is a birder, “and the success of the reintroduction.”
The eagles across the water were the living embodiment of love birds. While many gulls flew overhead, during the set-aside hours for eagle viewing approaching sunset, there were not a bunch of eagles soaring. No one had consulted their calendars for appointments. In general, however, in this area, eagles are fairly commonplace.
“These guys are highly reliable,” said Bloomington’s Sally Stermer, accompanied by husband Jeff and daughter Sarah for a viewing.
The trio harbors a fondness for eagles and hopes these types of events will make others pay attention to the environment.
“Amazing,” Sally said. “It’s a great program. You forget how beautiful it is.”
Frequently, sometimes soloists, sometimes in small groups and sometimes in groups of 20 or more, gulls flew overhead. A winter bird checklist passed out by Vance indicated 14 different types of gulls may appear at the lake, including a laughing gull, presumably chuckling at the chilled humans shivering in the wind.
Gulls do not seem to have the same cache as eagles, but cranes can be attention-getters. Katelyn Garrett of the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, Wisconsin, was a guest speaker. She told an audience there are 15 types of cranes, but only two, sandhill and whooping, appear in Indiana.
Sandhills stand about 4 feet tall, and there are probably 800,000 sandhill cranes worldwide, and 60,000 to 80,000 pass through or stay in Indiana, Garrett said.
Whooping cranes are generally a foot taller. There were only 10,000 whooping cranes in the 1940s, and at one point, before some restoration began, the head count dipped to 20, Garrett said.
Overall, scientists count 836 whooping cranes in existence now, she said, with up to 76 on an eastern migratory pattern that may bring them to or through Indiana.
Habitat loss, especially wetlands, has eroded opportunities for whooping cranes to thrive as well as collisions with power lines. Much like eagle efforts spread over years, it will take more human work to ensure survival of the species.
“There’s still a lot of work to be done,” Garrett said.