Asbury Park Gets Pair Of Bald Eagles

ASBURY PARK, NJ - Two bald eagles have apparently been nesting on a light stanchion high above the high school football field.

Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey, which maintains an eagle cam on the various eagles around the state, report volunteers first spotted the male at the end of October.

Deal Lake Commission Chair Don Brockel told the Asbury Park Sun that the pair seem to be readying to start a family. Not much is known about the origins of the female, who seems to be about five years old but the male wears a tracking device. And he is - as the song goes - a bit of a rolling stone. He has flown into a number of states, officials said of the eight-year-old.

The once endangered sea scavenger prefers a wetland habitat, like seacoasts, rivers, large lakes and marshes. Their lifespan is about 20 years and they can reach speeds of more than 40 miles an hour.

NJ Eagle Project volunteer Randy Lubischer spotted the banded adult bald eagle near his home in Monmouth County. He was able take photos that showed the bird was banded with a blue New York tag on the left leg and was able to get a clear image of the letter and number code on the band, officials said. The New York state Division of Fish, Wildlife and Marine Resources helped fill in the blanks.

In the fall of 2011, an injured hatch-year bird was found on the side of the road in Onondaga County, NY. The bird was nursed back to health, banded with the id W34 and released Oct. 7, 2011 at the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuse in that state. The bird was sited on Nov. 18, 2016 in Darlington, MD and then again on March 1, 2017 in northeast Maryland..

"W34 looks to be staying in New Jersey to nest as he has found a mate, a sub-adult female, who still has dark feathers on her head," according to Conserve Wildlife's report. "They have started to build a nest and have been copulating."

A pair of bald eagles, this image is not of the Asbury Park couple. Photograph by Dan Joling/Associated Press.