TEXAS ALL OUTDOORS

1. Eagles find a winter home in East Texas

If you are driving around a reservoir, large private lake or river in Texas and wonder what that was that just flew over your head, take a second and look again, you might be looking at a bald eagle.

Back from the edge of extinction, bald eagles are the largest raptors found in Texas and right now they are nesting seeming everywhere in the state.

Once commonplace throughout much of the country at various times of the year, the bald eagle population plunged beginning in the 1940s to the point that in 1967 they were placed on the Endangered Species List. At the same time the pesticide, DDT, which was known to weaken eggs was also banned.

In 1971 there four eagle nests along the Texas coast produced six young birds, known as the six miracles of that year.

It was not long after the birds were listed that bald eagle numbers responded and today they can be found around most major river systems in the eastern portion of Texas.

The birds will usually migrate into the area about October and are gone by March or early April.

And in case you ever wondered, bald eagles don’t begin life with their white head. Those actually begin to show up when the birds reach 3 or 4 years of age.