There is a small town in Illinois about 1/2 hour north of St. Louis, MO that lies at the meeting of the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers. It is very well known for having a huge population of wintering eagles that come down from Canada seeking open water. While visiting my son and his family in St. Louis late in February I decided to take a day and go in search of the wintering eagles. When I got to the first of the eagle hangout sites, a local dam, I only found one eagle but instead found flotillas of thousands of White Pelicans. I asked a local who was there about the eagles and he told me I was about 2 weeks late, that the eagles had all started leaving to go back north about 2 weeks before. He did say that as the eagles leave each year they get these huge influx of White Pelicans. I guess it's kind of like the changing of the seasons from eagle season to Pelican season. The large groups of pelicans will slowly start to break up as they head to nesting sites locally and further north.
