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John Hollenhorst ReportingA fake tree is evidently almost as good as a dead one, at least as far as a family of Bald Eagles is concerned. They're thriving, with three new babies, at the same spot where their original nest was wiped out by a fierce windstorm.
Nesting bald eagles are quite rare in Utah. That's why bird expert Bob Walker gets pretty wound up after watching this nest for more than a decade.
Bob Walters, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources: "This nesting pair is just fabulous. They've produced 28 eaglets over 11 years. That's a very productive pair of birds."
This year there are three eaglets. Just 74 days old, they're already almost as big as their parent perched nearby. A windstorm in 2002 knocked down the tree that held the original nest.
Bob Walters: "We got lucky. They all managed to survive the fact that their home crashed to the ground."
State officials replaced the tree with a telephone pole on the same spot, just outside the landing pattern for the Salt Lake Airport.
Bob Walters: "It is not a thing of beauty, but it's worked."
In a way, their survival is partly due to dumb luck. The place they established their nest originally, later became part of the legacy nature preserve, an environmental tradeoff for the controversial Legacy Highway.
Mike Perkins, Utah Dept. of Transportation: "It's 2,100 acres. It has a variety of wetland and upland habitats for a lot of different species of wildlife, including the bald eagle nest."
Bob Walters: "We've given them just enough space that if we can just kind of keep back as much as we can, I don't see any reason where those birds can't go on and continue to do great things for years and years."
Any day now, the youngsters are expected to test their wings and fly away from their fake tree.
Just a few years ago there were only two known pairs of nesting Bald Eagles in the entire state of Utah; now there are at least ten. The big birds are making a comeback.
