It was Frank Isaacs who taught me it was a lie, for he provided me with the name of a book called Eagle’s Plume, “The struggle to preserve the life & haunts of America’s bald eagle, by Bruce E Beans. The book came out in the same year I first saw the 2 nests in Point Roberts; 1996! To this day it is considered “the” reference book on eagles. Eagle’s Plume could just as easily been named Heart of Darkness. In Frank Isaacs powerpoint, he touched on the darkness that I’d yet to see. Frank Isaacs told us that the state of Alaska had placed a bounty on eagles. Yes they paid people to shoot eagles. WTH —

So I get people all the time that ask what I do, or Jeff why your thing with eagles? On one level it was I saw they needed help. I also found myself in a position where I could help, if I only took the time to do so. The thought occurred to me that I’d been enjoying coming to this eagle habitat my whole life, and I didn’t really see the consequences of over 150 years of development and commerce. I didn’t see the decades of poor management of natural resources. The eagles posed questions that I couldn’t answer. I heard someone say “taking responsibility is an alternative to blame”, and that kind of resonated with me, for I had just spent 25 years building big multi-family projects where I was the superintendent responsible for everyone’s work on the project. Most subcontractors had 5-10% of their work, that was incomplete, done wrong, missed specifications, wasn’t to code etc. So I was the one left to correct all these flaws. I was responsible.

The same mindset permeated my dealings with eagles. In Point Roberts, WA I quickly realized the eagles had nobody to stand up for them. I read Eagles Plume and now knew how errors were made, habitat destroyed or compromised, and feeding grounds eliminated. Nobody was really taking responsibility to protect the eagles, mainly because people just didn’t know they needed protection.

We’ve all been exposed to many of these realities of habitat destruction over the last 3-4 decades. I’ve talked to many people who find it’s hard to figure out what can we really do about any of it. Well these eagles had moved me and connected with me, and I was inspired to see what I could do about helping them, and so my journey began.

When I first started researching eagles on the internet, I’d often come across the opening statement ”if your going to get involved with eagles, prepare yourself to be able to handle extremes”. This warning just hung in the air, like some far off siren in the night, Somebody had help on the way. There were no sirens for the eagles.

For me there was more help on the way. It was David Hancock, Canada’s top bald eagle expert, who I’d also contacted to help me learn about eagles. So with Frank Isaacs and David Hancock I was learning from two biologists had been out in the field with wild eagles for decades. They had a certain type of attitude and demeanor that it took awhile for me to find the words for. They were quick to dismiss the snap assumptions of those with no experience with eagles. Their own views on eagles were very guarded. They would be quick to point out that for every answer they acquired about eagles, that most likely a few more questions would appear. Learning about eagles always leads one to realiz they have so much more to learn.

Eventually the words came to me that defined the attitude of those with eagle experience’s had, and seems to me like the proper attitude one should have around eagles.

Resigned Reverence!

Resigned as having accepted something unpleasant that one cannot do anything about... and then couple that feeling with; Reverence .... A feeling of deep respect and awe...

Resigned Reverence .... That’s where I’m at... that’s where I’ve been for over a decade. Following eagles has been Inspiration... heartbreak... breathtaking... depressing... enlightening ... darkness

As Colonel Kurtz said in Apocalypse Now ”that’s my dream... that’s my nightmare”

One of the first things Frank Isaacs taught me were the protocol’s established for monitoring eagles.

First one needs to get a spotting scope or really good pair of binoculars. Then you need to stay 1/4 to 1/2 mile away. It turns out that the location of the missing nests was about a 1/2 mile from the family beach cottage where I stayed whenever I visited Point Roberts.

I left the Eagle Festival in central Oregon and headed up to Point Roberts once again. I arrived in the late afternoon and dropped my bags in the house and took my scope down to the seawall. I saw a female eagle on top of a big rock, and nearby was a juvenile eagle waiting to see if mom was going to give her any of the small fish she was eating. I wanted to get closer but knew if I just walked down the beach towards the 2 eagles, that they’d just fly away. So I got in the car and drove to the 60 foot bluff right above them and put my camera on a tripod. I watched as mom finished her snack and flew off, and the juvenile followed. So I headed back to the car and a lady appeared, and as she got close she asked, “Did you hear about the new subdivision.” I said “subdivision?” “Yes there is a new 100 home subdivision going in on 100 acres.”

A sudden realization came over me. I had worked for housing developers for 20 years, and 2 eagles nests would certainly impact their plans. So now I had an educated suspicion of who was behind the nests going missing without a trace.

I started daily walks past the empty nest trees each day. For the first time I saw the adults on the 100 acre property and one juvenile. I learned that the old property was once called McLennon Farm, and the 2 nests were near Paul’s Road. It was back in 1967 when I was 12, and had a transistor radio pressed to my ear, listening to the Beatles, All You Need Is Love… the lyric ‘nothing you can see that isn’t shown’ resonated deep inside me, as I knew there were things I didn’t see that adults did. There were no eagles in Point Roberts in 1967, yet I remember reading a description of eagle habitat, and Point Roberts seemed to be a perfect match. “Nothing you can know, that isn’t known”.

So somehow my mind thought back to that time in 1967, and I decided to acknowledge that connection and give these eagles a Beatles name. The female I named Sky (Lucy in The Sky With Diamonds) I added the e, so she became Skye. The male I named Mr. Kite (Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite). The Juvenile was a little tricky, as I didn’t know if it was a female or male. So I named the Juvenile Elenor Rigby. So later on I figured out he was a male, so he became Rigby. Thus began my journey of experiencing what magical spiritual beings eagles were.

If you like to read the book click here 🦅 👉🏼 Eagle’s Plume

I welcome everyone to my new Substack Blog, The Eagle Whispers. My unique experience with eagles has opened my eyes to what eagles deal with when living among us. I grew up spending my summers in Point Roberts, WA one of the greatest eagle habitats in America, yet there were no eagles. The story of this cottonwood tree seemed like as good a place as any to start telling my story. (The picture, taken on June 10^th 2026 put on top of blog), shows an adult pair of eagles perched in the tree just a few days before it came crashing down a steep 60 foot slope. Thus ending the eagle pair’s and my 30 year relationship with this tree.

It was 1996, and I was back in Point Roberts, staying at the family beach house. A few friends were visiting from Portland, OR and we decided to take a walk along the shoreline. After about a half mile the beachfront houses give way to dense forest that sits atop a 60 foot bluff. Suddenly we were face to face with 2 juvenile eagles perched in a tree. We couldn’t believe how large they were. This was the second time I’d ever seen an eagle, and the first time was in 1978 when an eagle flew over my head, and after a few minutes was gone. I was 23 at the time.

Now 41, I was starting to get curious about eagles and questions started coming to mind, yet I didn’t know where to find answers, or who to even talk to about it. We walked on for another mile or so and when we came back to the spot we saw the two eagles, they were gone. So we started looking up in the trees when I spotted the first nest. We both laughed at the ridiculous scale of the nest. It was 3 feet across and another couple of feet deep. Then we looked further to the west and saw the second nest. It looked a little bigger then the first nest. The nests were in cottonwood trees and the nests were easy to see for it was early spring and the leaves of the trees were just starting to grow back. We never saw the adults during this trip. I went back to my life in Portland and forgot about the eagles.

I now lived in San Diego, CA and was working as a construction superintendent building large multi family housing projects. These projects consumed all my time, and it was 2007 before I got back to wanting to find answers about the eagle nests I’d seen. I arrived in August and went walking to where I’d seen the eagles in the past, and the 2 eagle nests. But when I got back to the beach house I hadn’t seen any eagles, and I had failed to find the nests? I was even more confused. I must have just missed seeing the nests, I thought.

In in late 2007 I met Frank Isaacs, who ran the Bald Eagle Monitoring Program in Oregon from 1978 to 2007.

Frank told me about the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, which was first written in 1940, and updated and expanded into Federal Guidelines for protecting eagles and their habitat.

It was men like Frank who armed with these guidelines enabled the Bald Eagles to come back from near extinction. The State of Washington also had their wildlife agency, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) and of course the Federal wildlife agency (USFWS) backed up the work of the State Agencies. But Frank Isaacs also taught me the protocol for observing eagles. This would open up a whole other level of my understanding of eagles.

So I found out that the eagle’s nests, tree’s etc are protected, and alternate nests are also protected. This is what Mr. Isaacs taught me, and following is right off the USFWS webpage; here is the explanation of the active nest, and the alternative nest protection from USFWS.

“Under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act (BGEPA), both active nests and alternate nest trees are federally protected year-round in the United States.

The legal framework and protections specifically address alternate nest trees:

• Definition: An alternate nest is defined as one of potentially several nests within a nesting territory that is not currently “in-use” (meaning it lacks eggs or dependent young). When a territory is occupied but no eggs are laid, all nests in that territory are considered alternate nests.

• Year-Round Protection: Nests are protected at all times, regardless of whether eagles are currently present. It is illegal to destroy, relocate, or obstruct eagle nests without a permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS).

• Disturbance Buffers: The National Bald Eagle Management Guidelines recommend a buffer zone of up to 660 feet around both active and alternate nests to prevent human activities from interfering with breeding and sheltering.

• Washington State Context: Although the bald eagle was removed from the Washington state and federal endangered species lists, federal protection remains stringent. Permits issued through the USFWS Eagle Management Program are required if any human project threatens to disturb or take (destroy/remove) an eagle nest. “

Here is a picture of the WDFW record of this eagle territory which coincidentally started in 1996, the same year I’d first seen the nests tree identified by WDFW as 1261-1 and 1216-2 (pictured below). The tree we are talking about is 1261-1.

So the next year in 2008 I came back to Point Roberts to verify the status of the eagle nests that I failed to find the previous year. I also had acquired a spotting scope and started observing the eagles of Seabright Farm by following official protocols.

So the challenge of this blog is to bring forward a lot of facts and research that has been done with eagles over the last 50 years. Also I will be presenting a lot of field research done on eagles, and eventually this blog will be part of a book I plan on publishing when I get through most of the material on eagles. I want to present a basic view of eagles, so everyone will better understand the more advanced and significant lessons on eagles.

I always get a lot of questions about eagles, and so we are putting a FAQ page on EagleSkyenet.com — The more one learns about eagles, the more questions come to mind, and sometimes the eagles give you the answer, but it comes along with more questions.

I have 20 years of video’s and pictures I’ve taken as part of my extensive study. The documentary series will go much deeper into various topics then this blog will. This blog is intended to give one a general education on eagles, as where the book and video series goes beyond the research and focus’s on how eagles are actually treated, and my personal experiences in dealing with wildlife authorities. This blog format will be more like a power point presentation and will jump around a lot with a loose narrative structure.

Substack was chosen as it allows for people to get this content for free, but it also allows for people to pay a monthly fee if they’d like help support the work we do at Eagle Skyenet.

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