March 2004

Symbolic Victory

No longer just an old-timer’s memory, bald eagles can often be seen in Hampton Roads skies

There was a time a couple of decades ago when the sight of a bald eagle soaring overhead in this area was only an old-timer’s memory. Today, bald eagles have taken to the skies all over Hampton Roads.

Our nation’s symbol first returned to rural areas along the James and other major rivers in Virginia, but within the past decade eagles are no strangers to the cities either. In recent years, a pair nested in a suburban back yard in Virginia Beach, and another in the area around Norfolk International Airport. Still another set up housekeeping on the Portsmouth/Chesapeake line where residents can watch the magnificent birds go about the business of building a nest and tending to the kids. An active nest is in First Landing State Park in Virginia Beach where residents see eagles soaring over the Lynnhaven River or flying over Atlantic Avenue to the ocean and back.

City dwellers in Newport News, Hampton, Suffolk, among other areas, also can count eagles in their censuses. Last year there were 371 known active nesting pair in Virginia, well over a score or more of them right here in Hampton Roads, said Reese Lukei of Virginia Beach.

For the rest of this story, you can order the March 2004 issue of Hampton Roads Magazine.