A Bald Eagle in Glendale

We all know that the best laid plans often go awry, as says my rough paraphrase of Robert Burn's famous line.  However I'm happy to say that I was not disappointed when I set out to see a bald eagle in Glendale this week.  Within two minutes of parking my car on the dirt road ending at the southeast corner of the municipality's recharge ponds, I spied a white-headed bird of prey a couple of hundred yards away.  It was high atop a utility pole where I couldn't tell if it was an eagle or a much more common osprey.  After a few more minutes walking north along the dusty eastern pathway, I was able to confirm my wildest dream: it was was a bald eagle.

While finding the symbol of our nation was the goal of my short outing, success was in no way guaranteed.  Yes, a nesting pair has regularly been identified in the area.  Yes, a desert variety of the raptor numbering in the hundreds populates the long waterways of Central Arizona throughout the year.  And yes, I have indeed seen one at this location, back on my first visit three-and-a-half years ago.  However on two subsequent visits I saw none.  In fact its been years since I've seen any bald eagle anywhere.

Lying a mile east of the gigantic football stadium that the Arizona Cardinals call home, the Glendale recharge ponds are formally called the New River - Agua Fria Underground Water Storage Project (NAUSP).  Within a grid of six basins, water is collected for seepage and storage into a natural underground aquifer.  This precious resource arrives via canals from the Salt and Verde Rivers, and also the Colorado River via the Central Arizona Project.  Additional water arrives as treated sewer water from the cities of Glendale and Peoria.  The Salt River Project utility manages this vast engineering endeavor.

The water in these basins creates 125 acres of temporary ponds that attract a variety of water dwelling fowl and plant life, including birds of prey like the bald eagle.  The teeming life in this habitat is a paradox in this busy urban corridor which, in addition to the football stadium, is surrounded by freeways, power lines, park benches, an airport, bike paths, a landfill, and all forms of human encroachment.  Just recently Glendale even added a brand new road, Ball Park Boulevard, with four lanes of zipping traffic on the western and northern borders of the complex.  

An actual natural waterway abuts the site, so I suspect that many migratory birds reach the ponds via the  Agua Fria and New River riverbed corridors.   At least one riparian zone along the river at the project's western border - now separated by Ball Park Boulevard - is maintained in a pristine state, hosting cottonwood and mesquite trees along with grassy reeds.  And some farms and small ranches haven't been tempted just yet by the money of lucrative development, so other birds are attracted to their fields and open spaces. 

On my recent visit, I was initially struck by the scores of cliff swallows.  They migrate to the area from far-away points in South America when our spring starts turning toasty and theirs chilly.  I was impressed by their noisy squeaks as they darted and dove around me in their hunt for tiny insects.  

As I ambled toward my shiny-headed target in the distance, I noticed a more rapid peep coming from the shoreline of the nearest water basin.  They were the warnings of killdeer attempting to distract me from their nests in the open, mud-baked slopes.  Maybe the protests were also directed at the red-winged blackbirds bleating distinctly nearby.

But it was a smell, a fishy tang, that really consumed my senses.  It was emanating from the rotting corpse of a gigantic fish lying in the dry canal bordering my trail.  The animal was so large I thought at first it was a seal - as improbable as that sounds in the desert - with glistening wet fur instead of slick scales.  Did the beast just recently expire?  Maybe the utility suddenly drained the canal haplessly leaving one of its oldest and mightiest algae-eating carp to die ignominiously in the hot sun.

Carrying on in my endeavor, I became giddy as my distance from the bald eagle counted down from a couple of hundred yards to a couple of hundred feet. Not only could I photograph the bird but I could discern its unique calls. They were soft, nervous peeps, unintimidating if intended to alert me as I closed in on the bird.  Ironically, it's the much smaller red-tailed hawk that owns the thunder-cracking screech we associate with a fierce bird of prey.

Nonetheless when it comes to magnificence, the founding fathers rightly chose the bald eagle as the emblem of their new nation.  Strikingly handsome with its white head and neck feathers, and its sharp, prominent beak, the large raptor perched proudly atop the pole, chiseling the wooden beams with its sharply-taloned grip.  Its clear, steely eyes never diverted their attention from me.

As I inched closer, the eagle unsurprisingly took flight.  I should have been better prepared with the camera as I missed some initial trophy shots.  Fortunately the bird decided to cross my path and veer in the direction I came from.  It maintained a startlingly low altitude as it made its stunning fly-by.  Snap, snap, snap, my pictures vividly recount a lucky once-in-a-lifetime story of a close, airborne encounter with a majestic beauty.

However a completely different image ends the story.  After the eagle was soon far beyond my zoom lens's range, soaring high in the sky and becoming indiscernible from a vulture or other high altitude flier, my senses ignored the sounds of red-winged blackbirds, swallows, and killdeer, and returned to a reeking smell.  Below the abandoned perch, on the muddy floor of the drying canal that bordered my walk, writhed at least a dozen large carp.  They were packed close together in a shrinking puddle as they made their final gasps for life.  

I was reminded that the bald eagle isn't just a hunter but is also a scavenger.  In fact I might not have scared the regal bird from its throne at all but instead from a table fit for a king. 

Bald eagle flying by at the Glendale recharge ponds.

Bald eagle flying by at the Glendale recharge ponds.

Bald eagle flying by at the Glendale recharge ponds.

Bald eagle flying by at the Glendale recharge ponds.

Bald eagle in the distance before take-off at the Glendale recharge ponds.

Bald eagle before take-off at the Glendale recharge ponds.

Bald eagle about to take-off at the Glendale recharge ponds.

Disappointing shot of the bald eagle taking off just before my better captures of his fly-by.

Suffocating carps in a puddle at a drying canal at the Glendale recharge ponds. The perched bald eagle might have been eyeing the dying fish as a meal.