“There is one tree at the end of Morgan Street that, if you get up early enough in the morning, you’ll almost always find 15 to 18 eagles roosting,’’ Buckley said of a street that ends on a high bluff overlooking Lock and Dam 19. “Some people may take it for granted, but most of the people in town that know about it will go to it from time to time. To see them in those numbers up close, it is awe-inspiring. To have them in a tree just above my head, it still turns my head every time.’’
Eagle Scout
The big bird has rebounded along the Mississippi, astonishing admirers with its robust beauty and power and profusion
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Kirk Brandenberger, 54, executive director for tourism in Keokuk, grew up seven miles from town but never saw an eagle as a child. It was not until the mid 1990s, after moving back to the area, that he saw one. Today, living in the same house he grew up in, he sees them frequently. “One day I caught a couple playing or fighting in midair,’’ he said. “They were flying upside down, right side up. It was amazing.’’
Brandenberger can boast that the Endangered Species Act is good not just for wildlife but for the economy. Keokuk is now one of many river towns that host versions of Bald Eagle Appreciation Days, each packed with a weekend of outdoor viewing and indoor interpretive programs. Keokuk’s attracted 7,000 to 8,000 people in January.
The festival, plus the stream of bird-watchers and photographers from the 2008 December freeze to ice melt in March probably was worth 60 percent of the $12 million in economic activity in Keokuk for that period, Brandenberger said. “This office and all of the tourism offices up and down the river that have eagles are busy in the winter while others are trying to figure out what to do next summer,’’ he said.
Visitors do not have to figure out what to do. You can see eagles perch and fly over your head almost anywhere along a mile strip starting from Victory Park. You can look down on the birds and have sweeping views of the Mississippi from the bluffs of Warsaw or Morgan Street. You can see them frolicking on the ice along a shoreline road that heads north out of town.
An All-American sight that came perilously close to belonging only to Alaska, of eagle after eagle roosting in trees, now belongs to millions within a day’s drive all over the Midwest. There is still genteel torpor in Keokuk, all right. It is of bird-watchers, frozen in a dream come true. A more insular place for the bald eagle can hardly be found.
Derrick Z. Jackson can be reached at jackson@globe.com.
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