ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 24, 1995 TAG: 9512270057
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: D-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
Among bird-watchers in the Roanoke Valley, Jim Flynn and Bill Hunley are earning a reputation for having eagle eyes.
During the Roanoke Christmas Bird Count, Flynn and Hunley spotted golden eagles on the Bennett Springs side of Carvins Cove. A few days earlier, they had observed an immature bald eagle from the boat-dock area of the cove.
Mike Donahue, the Roanoke count compiler, said the golden eagles were a rare Christmas gift.
``I don't recall any during previous Christmas counts,'' he said. ``We have them go through in migration during the fall, and then we will see them pop up occasionally as winter wears on.''
Local birders have been observing golden eagles wintering in the Catawba area, and they are common cold-weather residents in the Bath-Highland county area, especially around Lake Moomaw, where Gathright Dam holds 2,500 acres of water captive in a remote mountain valley.
Flynn and Hunley, along with Donahue and other birders, had paused at an abandoned home site during the bird count when the first eagle was spotted. Carvins Cove offers the kind of diversity that attracts a variety of birds. In addition to the imprints of old homesteads, where tall, brown grasses finger into brushy boundaries, there are patches of mature pines, water for waterfowl and shoreline for shorebirds.
``We stopped at one of the homesteads to get some sparrows, and they spotted a sky bird and it turned out to be a golden eagle,'' said Donahue, a birder since 1979.
The majestic bird, capable of having a wingspan of 7 feet, was soaring on the thermal currents.
``Later on, we got to the water and walked a little farther along a fire road and they spotted the second one,'' said Donahue. ``We could see the golden hackles on the second one. That was really impressive.''
The Roanoke bird count turned up 82 species, and the Fincastle count cataloged 78 species. That included a greater-than-usual number of Northern birds, doubtlessly driven south by snows and deep-freeze temperatures, said Barry Kinzie, compiler of the Fincastle count. The species included good numbers of tree sparrows, along with red-breasted nuthatches, black-capped chickadees, pine siskins, purple finches, red crossbills and even a northern goshawk and a northern harrier.
The migration began as early as September, Kinzie said.
``We started getting black-capped chickadees and some of the other Northern birds - purple finches and pine siskins - earlier than I've ever seen them come and in the best numbers I have seen since the winter of 1977-78,'' said Kinzie. ``I predicted then, with the influx of Northern birds, that we were going to have a winter very similar to 77-78. And it has started that way.''
That winter was one of frozen pipes and cracked engine blocks, and snow that hung around for weeks.
A cold winter can make for interesting bird-watching around home feeders. Last week, Kinzie was loading up feeders on his property - Woodpecker Ridge - in Botetourt County.
``There were literally hundreds of birds,'' he said.
Hungry birds. Consumption of seed and other food is high.
``We are ahead of the schedule of the past two years,'' he said.
Lucky is the person who will find a new feeder or sack of seeds under the Christmas tree in the morning.
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