Shy Bald Eagle Pair Returns to Nevada Nesting Site

Leave them alone and they’ll come home.

That’s what state wildlife biologists have been telling Lahontan Reservoir visitors about a shy pair of bald eagles that took up residence at the lake two years ago.

This week, for the third year in a row, the birds returned to their familiar nest on the Silver Springs side of the reservoir in Lyon County about 40 miles east of Reno.

Larry Neel, non-game biologist for the Nevada Division of Wildlife, said some observant visitors confirmed two breeding eagles had returned to the nest this week. He urged people to give them plenty of space.

“They really are not very tolerant of attention directed toward them,” Neel told the Lahontan Valley News.

Lahontan State Park and state wildlife officials have tried to minimize disturbances from boaters in past years by cordoning off the area around the nesting tree, on a peninsula west of Virginia Beach.

The birds have not been tagged so it’s not possible to know for sure if the eagles are the same two that used the nest in the spring of 1997 and 1998, Neel said.

But wildlife officials say they most likely are the same pair that experienced both tragedy and triumph in the past two years.

The eagles produced a chick in 1997, but wind blew the eaglet out of the nest before it could fly.

Last year, the eagles had another chick, which was believed to have fully fledged and left the nest.

“We have no clue as to his whereabouts,” said Chris Healy, spokesman for the Nevada Division of Wildlife.

The eagles will spend the next couple of weeks putting their stick-built roost back together. An egg could be expected in April, followed by a downy baby.

Bill Henry, a biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said seven to 12 bald eagles visited the valley this winter, but have taken off to other locations to breed.

In 1986, a high water year in the Carson River drainage, 76 bald eagles were counted wintering in the Lahontan Valley and Carson Sink.

Large numbers of fish were easy pickings for eagles that year, he said.