Eagles take wing at Lake Pueblo

The fact that the eagle-watchers far outnumbered the eagles did little to dampen the viewers’ enthusiasm at the Eagle Day Festival Saturday at Lake Pueblo State Park.

“I came to see the eagles,” Dave Jones of Pueblo West proclaimed.

And Jones, along with hundreds of other eagle fans, got their chance. Saturday morning’s cold and mist meant that the half-dozen or so bald eagles that spend the winter around the reservoir stayed put, making it easy for spotting scopes to zoom in on them.

“It’s a good year for eagles,” said John Koshak, watchable wildlife coordinator for the Colorado Division of Wildlife, which sponsors the annual festival. “The colder it is up north, the better it is for us for eagles.”

About 1,200 eagles spend the winter in Colorado, seeking open water where they can feast on dead fish, Koshak said. The birds begin arriving in early winter and stay until early spring. Lake Pueblo isn’t exactly an eagle magnet — the Alamosa area generally attracts larger numbers — but the birds that make it home seem to like it, hanging out on stumps and cliffs around the water, sometimes even sitting right on the ice on frozen parts of the lake.

“Fish get frozen into the ice,” Koshak said. “It makes for easy pickings.”

It’s the 14th year for the Eagle Festival, which continues on Sunday. It’s a chance for birders to get out mid-winter and for young nature lovers to meet captive birds from the Pueblo Zoo, then get a peek at their wild brethren.

Shannon Montalbano of Pueblo brought her young children, Anna and Sam, to the festival and helped them peer through the spotting scopes set up around the reservoir.

“The kids are very fascinated with nature right now,” shes said.