Wildlife Biologist Chris Cain says that when people see bald eagles in the wild, they’re usually surprised by their size — the birds can have a wingspan of up to eight feet wide.
“If you don't see eagles day in, day out, it kind of brings a shock factor,” Cain said.
As a wildlife biologist for the Missouri Department of Conservation, Cain gets to encounter eagles daily, at least in the winter, when the birds fly south to the Kansas City area.
Every year, the MDC and the Kansas City District of the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers offers curious observers an opportunity to see bald eagles in the wild and learn about the species at Eagle Days.
The next event is Saturday, Jan. 11, 2025, at Smithville Lake.
“You kind of get pretty close to them and they're flying overhead,” Cain said. “So I definitely recommend, if you haven't been.”
Experts, like Cain and conservation biologist Kyle Ruona, will also give presentations about eagle biology to their history.
“We'll be able to kind of describe some of the behaviors, what's going on,” Ruona said. “And kind of providing them that resource to leave afterwards and understand and appreciate bald eagles, our national icon.”
Eagle Days is also a celebration of the work done to save this once-endangered species.
A hundred years ago, the bald eagle was practically extinct, with only 416 nesting pairs in the United States. Now, the country boasts tens of thousands of them.
Through the 1940 Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, the banning of the herbicide DDT and work by conservation biologists, the population began to return in the 1960s and ‘70s.
Around the same time, the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers began constructing lakes around Kansas City, like Clinton Lake and Longview Lake, which were completed in 1975 and 1985, respectively.
While they were originally built for flood control, agriculture, and recreation, these man-made lakes have proven to be necessary to the eagle population’s recovery.
”They feed on fish primarily, but they also feed on waterfowl,” Ruona said. “And these lakes provide both of those resources for them.”
Cain says that man-made lakes also help combat one of the biggest threats to eagles: loss of habitat. The lakes provide a dependable home for the birds while they’re in town.
“With the construction of, whether it’s homes, it’s apartments, it’s stores, so on and so forth,” Cain said. “Just every time something is built, that’s habitat that could have been used for wildlife.”
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers manages 18 man-made lakes around the Kansas City metro area, and several of them offer Eagle Days programming.
This year, the Eagle Day on Sunday, Jan. 5 at Smithville Lake was postponed because of the blizzard.
Despite the snow, however, the eagles themselves are able to adapt to this kind of climate. According to Ruona, eagles can insulate themselves by trapping pockets of air with their feathers. But if the lakes freeze over and the birds are unable to hunt for fish, they might migrate to warmer weather.
For now, the eagles have stuck around — as has the opportunity to see them in the wild.
Here are the upcoming Eagle Days events around Kansas City:
- Smithville Lake: Jan. 11, 2025, 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
- Wyandotte County Lake: Jan. 18 and 19, 2025, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- Harry S. Truman Lake: Feb. 15, 2025, 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
