Harper lasted 41 minutes before she said it. We were standing at a pull-off by the water below Guntersville Dam, three of us in a row with one pair of borrowed binoculars, and she lowered them and announced, "We drove an hour to look at sticks."
She was not wrong. Bald eagles are big birds, but from a distance a perched eagle is a dark lump in a dead tree, and dead trees beside a lake have a lot of dark lumps. Some are knots. Some are crows. Several, Ben was sure, were buzzards. He said "That's a buzzard" about a dozen times over the weekend and was right every time but one.
Lake Guntersville State Park runs eagle awareness weekends every winter, with naturalists, live bird programs and guided trips to look for eagles. I looked at them back in December, and the dates didn't work for us and the lodging packages were more than we wanted to spend. So we made our own version on February 21 and 22, toward the tail end of eagle season, with one night at the park's lodge and a lot of patience.
The weekend
The park is a little over an hour from Decatur. The lodge sits on top of a mountain above the lake, and our room looked out over a lot of gray water and bare trees. In February that is the whole point: no leaves means you can see what is sitting in the trees.
Saturday afternoon we drove the park roads slowly and stopped at every spot with a view of the water. Then we went down to the dam, where the water stays churned up and the eagles come to fish. That is where Harper made her speech about sticks. At minute 58, a big dark shape left a tree on the far bank, flew low and slow over the water and showed its white head and white tail as it turned. Ben said, "That's a buzzard," and then, "No. No, it's not." Eagle number one.
We ate dinner from the cooler in our room, watched the lake go dark and went to bed at 9:30 like people with a plan.
Sunday we were back at the water by 7:30, and eagle number two was sitting in plain view at the top of a dead pine as if it had been waiting for us. We watched it through the binoculars for ten minutes. It didn't do anything. Harper didn't care. She held the binoculars the whole time and narrated every turn of its head.
When to go: December through February is the season, and mornings were better for us than afternoons. My one tip is to scan the tallest dead trees along the shoreline, not the sky. Look for the white head first and the size second. An eagle sitting still is much easier to find than an eagle flying, and much easier to keep in the binoculars once you do.
What an 11-year-old thought
On the drive home I asked Harper to rank the weekend, because she ranks everything. Her list, in order:
- Eagle number two, "because it stayed."
- Eagle number one, "because Dad called it a buzzard."
- Breakfast at the lodge, specifically the bacon.
- The view from our room.
- Looking at sticks.
She also said she would go again, "but next time with a better book for the car." From an 11-year-old, that's a rave.
I'm counting the trip as a win. Two eagles in about four hours of looking is a decent rate, the park was quiet in a way it never is in summer, and nobody checked a work email from Saturday noon to Sunday noon, including me. That last part might have been the real prize.
What it cost
- Gas: about $15
- One night at the state park lodge, with tax: $148
- Cooler food (sandwiches, fruit, snacks, Saturday dinner in the room): $32
- Sunday breakfast at the lodge, with tip: $41
- Binoculars: Carol's, again
Total: about $236. Two eagles, roughly $118 an eagle, which Harper pointed out is "a lot per bird." She is not wrong about that either.
