Myles Lamont of the Hancock Wildlife Foundation spent the day Sunday high in a Douglas Fir tree, near Viking Way in French Creek, building a man-made eagle nest.
“We’re talking typically about 4 feet across or roughly four feet in diameter and we’ll build it about a foot high and the birds in theory when they adopt it come in and add to it quite substantially by bringing in a bunch more nest material,” Lamont said.
Lamont was joined by Hancock Wildlife Foundation founder and eagle expert David Hancock. The two have been tasked with finding the best spot and building a new nest to replace one in the nearby French Creek marina that’s in a tree deemed a danger because it is dying.
“When we’re finished today we’ll have made a platform that normally the eagles will see instantly when they come back and find their nest down and they take to our nest,” explained Hancock.
Hancock has had a nearly perfect success rate in eagles moving into the twenty nests he has built so far on the mainland.
He credits provincial laws that now force developers to replace a nest if it has to come down, with three new ones.
In this case, the landowner French Creek House Limited is paying for the new nests and possibly a webcam.
A large part of the area is slated for a major development but French Creek House is gifting 7 hectares of land to be dedicated as a park.
“We’re hoping as David Hancock suggested that it will become an eagle preserve because this area is so important to both wintering and resident eagles,” said Denise Foster of Save Estuary Lands Society.
“In this whole area, there is so much devastation from development that we’re thrilled to be part of this saving of conservation land,” added Robin Robinson of Friends of Frech Creek Conservation Society.
Dean Stoltz
