photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

A bald eagle flies over the Kansas River on Feb. 18, 2025, in Lawrence.

If you see the snowy white head of a bald eagle soaring over the Kansas River, you are looking at an elite survivor, or nature’s equivalent of an Olympic athlete, as eagle expert Scott Mehus puts it.

That’s because bald eagles don’t get their signature white plumage until they’re 5 or 6 years old, and if they’ve made it that far they’ve beaten tremendous odds, considering that 70% to 80% die before reaching maturity, says Mehus, the education director at the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, Minnesota.

As Lawrence’s City Hall — and most of the town — shut down last week in the grip of a polar vortex, America’s once-endangered national bird could be seen flying high above it, looking for prey around the dam.

“It’s a cool concentration on the Kaw, especially when everything freezes up. That kind of concentrates (birds) right below the dam,” said Lucas DeCicco, the Ornithology Collection manager at the University of Kansas.

The river just east of the dam near City Hall is one of the larger bodies of unfrozen water in the area during an extreme cold snap, which makes for better food opportunities for eagles, which in turn makes for better eagle-viewing opportunities for humans.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

A bald eagle is pictured by the Kansas River on Feb. 18, 2025, in Lawrence.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

A bald eagle perches over the Kansas River on Feb. 18, 2025, in Lawrence.

Some of the eagles seen around Lawrence stay all year while others may have migrated from the north — not because they couldn’t stand the cold, Mehus said, far from it, but because they moved for the food supply.

Where Mehus lives in southeastern Minnesota, a 5-mile stretch of the Mississippi River widens and remains liquid, attracting hundreds of eagles for the winter that can be viewed from the National Eagle Center.

While eagles in that area will start laying eggs in March, Mehus expects that in the Lawrence area that once-a year process has already begun. So the eagle you’re seeing flying around looking for fish, rodents and other food — it can spot a rabbit more than 2 miles away — likely has a mate nearby. Males and females take turns hunting and sitting on a clutch of two to three eggs.

After about 35 days of incubation, the eggs hatch, yielding “fluffy white baseball-sized” eaglets, Mehus said. Within 10 to 12 weeks, those chicks will be as large as their parents, and by fall, if they survive, they should be ready to go off on their own.

Even if they’re not exactly ready, too bad.

“If they try to come back, Mom and Dad are going to chase them away,” Mehus said, because they don’t want the competition.

Only half of eaglets reach the one-year mark, Mehus said. Causes of death can include falls, impact injuries, starvation, poisoning or siblicide, among other causes.

Kansas, as of 2024, had around 230 active bald eagle nests in the state, according to Jennifer Delisle, the information manager for Kansas Natural Heritage Inventory. Fifteen of those were in Douglas County.

The first nesting in recent times was at Clinton Lake in 1989, 22 years after the species was first declared endangered in 1967, largely as a result of the toxicity of DDT, an insecticide that was eventually banned in 1972.

Since then, bald eagles have staged a remarkable comeback, Mike Watkins told the Journal-World in 2018, nearly 30 years after that eagle couple set up house at Clinton Lake. He said that between those living here and those passing through, 2,500 to 3,000 eagles could be seen in Kansas during the winter.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that the lower 48 states now are home to 71,400 nesting pairs of bald eagles — vs. the all-time low of 417 in 1963 — and an estimated 316,700 individual birds.

While opportunities to see bald eagles in the wild are relatively plentiful right now, especially with trees bare of leaves — those who wish to get a good close-up look of the majestic bird can visit Skye at Prairie Park Nature Center in Lawrence. Skye is a male around 8 years old who was rescued and donated to the center after it was discovered that he was unable to survive on his own due to a wing deformity.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

A bald eagle flies over the Kansas River on Feb. 18, 2025, in Lawrence.