How many bald eagles spend the winter in Rhode Island is difficult to say, since some of the birds move around when ponds and lakes freeze. So some of them probably stop along the Rhode Island coast.” How far they go is questionable - some definitely go as far as Chesapeake Bay - but many of them only go as far as they have to to find open water. Plus, we have a contingent of eagles from Maine and southern Canada that migrate. “Rhode Island also gets some spillover in the winter of eagles from Massachusetts and Connecticut. “At our latitude, most adult eagles don’t migrate,” French said. He said Rhode Island has four nesting pairs of eagles, and most of their young probably stick around the area for a few years before dispersing to find breeding territories of their own.

According to Tom French, assistant director of the Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program for the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, who has been monitoring bald eagle numbers in New England for more than two decades, many of the eagles sighted in Rhode Island in winter are year-round residents, but they are less noticeable during the breeding season. As many as nine bald eagles were sighted together on the Seekonk River, which is now considered the most reliable place to find the birds in Rhode Island.Įxperts say that eagle numbers are expected to climb even higher. Last January alone, bird watchers reported seeing bald eagles at Brickyard Pond in Barrington, Watchaug Pond in Charlestown, Tiogue Lake in Coventry, Stump Pond in Smithfield, Trustom Pond and the Great Swamp in South Kingstown, the Pawcatuck River in Westerly, and flying over numerous other locations. In winter, they have become almost commonplace. All of which suggests that sightings of bald eagles in the Ocean State are no longer the rare occurrence that they used to be. They have been observed eating Canada geese on highway medians, soaring over shopping center parking lots, perched in trees in Providence, and hunting for fish at nearly every large lake in the state.

Tom french birds