Jan. 11-12, 2002 Last Update: 1/15/02 8:30pm CT
Every winter, eagles migrate to the Mississippi River for food. We went out to Dubuque, Iowa Jan. 11, 2002 to see some eagles. It’s only a 2:45 drive. Normally, the top of the river is frozen except near the locks. The eagles hang out at the locks so they can catch fish. This year however, it has been so warm, that the river only has a few icy spots. So eagle viewing was limited. The park ranger said that normally you’d see 50 eagles standing on the ice at any one time. This year the eagles have spread out along the river, so there aren’t large concentrations of them in any one area. We probably saw 15-20 eagles total.
We first went to the “Mines of Spain” State Recreation Area, just south of Dubuque. (This area of the midwest has many lead mines). This land was originally owned by Spain, and they gave Julien Dubuque permission to work the land. There are some hiking trails here, so we took a walk. It was warm, about 40(F), which is hot for this time of year around here. We walked toward the Mississippi River in hopes of seeing some eagles. We saw a couple, but they were too far away.
Next, it was off to Wisconsin (a 10 minute drive at most). You can get right next to the locks on that side. Here’s Denise standing in front of the locks.
This would’ve been a cool picture if it wasn’t so fuzzy, an eagle flying over the sunset.
We had read that the best time to see the eagles was in the morning. So the next day, we went to the locks on the Iowa side. It was “Eagle Watch Weekend” in Dubuque, so the park rangers were on hand with telescopes and knowledge. Their scopes were way better than the zoom on the camcorder. So Denise and I saw eagles up close — you won’t. It was cold and windy, so after about an hour, we got in the car, drove down a few blocks along the Mississippi and sat in the warm car and watched the eagles fly around. The digital zoom on the camcorder makes things a little blocky in the pictures below. The third picture is an eagle flying in front of the locks.
The area near the Mississippi is very hilly, at least by midwest standards. Probably less than 10 blocks from the river is a very large hill. Up the side of this 189 foot hill is an elevator. Two cars share three rails and pass each other in the middle of the hill. As one car goes up, the other goes down. The story goes that in 1882, a local banker had the Fenelon Elevator built so he could get home during lunch and not have to struggle climbing the stairs to the top of the hill. (It was closed for the winter, so we did not ride it)
Time for the Dubuque commentary: It’s not a bad little town. There was one street we drove down that you can almost image what it looked like 100 years ago. The houses were all very old, small and built right on the edge of the street. Flipping the dial on the TV, we ran into a cable access show listing houses for sale. Lots of cheap housing. No, I didn’t find any jobs for software engineers in the local paper. I also ran into the local news on TV. I guess if you have a good day fishing in Dubuque, you get on the sports segment.