Highland's eagle returns home for the holidays

Virgil Caine, a three-year-old Highland County golden eagle, has completed her fall migration and has returned home to Highland's mountains. (Photo courtesy Patti Reum) HIGHTOWN — Virgil Caine, the threeyear old golden eagle who spent last winter in Highland County, must know Highland is a great place to live. She has completed her fall migration and has once again sought out the mountains here.

Virgil was banded and fitted with a telemetry unit last March by eagle biologists from the Center for Conservation Biology at the College of William and Mary. Patti Reum of Bear Mountain Farm, who, with Sandy Hevener of Blue Grass, initiated the project idea with a Golden Chase fund-raising event, was happy to report Virgil's return.

After the eagle's release at Bear Mountain Farm, she stayed a short time in the county, then migrated north. She spent the months of July and August on the Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec, Canada. Starting Aug. 4, she began her slow journey southward and headed back to the United States. She spent the entire month of August and half of September in the extreme northwest portion of Maine, along the Canadian border. By Sept. 20, she had reached the northern tip of New Hampshire and spent a few days there before heading west into northern Vermont.

By Sept. 26, she was again moving south. She traveled for about six days in a southwesterly direction and reached Pennsylvania by Oct. 5. She flew continuously on Oct. 6 through the middle of Pennsylvania and, by the end of that day, she was in eastern West Virginia. Oct. 7, Virgil was back in Highland County and spent the night in the region known as The Stamp and Middle Mountain.

She spent two days here, and then flew just to the east of Bear Camp and Red Oak Knob, not very far from her place of release and her northern migration path of last spring. Oct. 9, in the late afternoon, she crossed U.S. 250, flew south over Monterey Mountain and crossed U.S. 220 south of Monterey. She crossed the border at Bath County, spent a day in Pocahontas County, W.Va., changed her course to an easterly direction, and settled near Grayson Highlands for about two weeks. "I was somewhat concerned that she may have found a new mountain home so I secretly whispered to her that Highland County would be a much better winter home, where she would find an abundance of prey, deer carcasses and an adoring group of fans," Reum said. "She must have heard my pleas, because on Oct. 29, she headed north along the Virginia-West Virginia border and was back in Highland by Oct. 31."

For about a week, she stayed in the vicinity of Trimble, south of Sounding Knob in the Lantz Mountain range, Reum said. Nov. 8 she made a bee-line east, crossing over Mt. Carlyle and Sheep Knob and U.S. 250 in the eastern part of the county. She took a very brief sojourn into Augusta County, changed her mind, and returned to Highland. She has been in the northeastern portion of the county near Bullpasture Mountain and the border with Augusta County as of the last telemetry reading on Nov. 19.

Libby Mojica, eagle biologist at the Center for Conservation Biology at the College of William and Mary, fitted Virgil Caine with the telemetry unit harness back in March. "She has now enrolled our golden eagle in a program designed to track and adopt sea turtles and other animals," Reum said. "Virgil is the only golden eagle that is part of this unique organization."

Reum encourages everyone to consider adopting Virgil Caine through this program and be part of the tracking project and the cutting edge research of the team watching Highland's eagle. "It's a great gift idea," she added.

If you would like to adopt Virgil, go to www.seaturtle. org/tracking/adopt. Search using the words "Virgil Caine" and click "Adopt this animal." You can chose from various levels of adoption packets, running from $25 to $100. With each packet, you get maps, pictures and information about the eagle. You can also sign up to receive maps by e-mail, which will keep you informed of the eagle's location.

"Your tax-deductible contribution will go directly toward payment of the satellite telemetry project," Reum said. "We raised money from the Golden Chase bird-a-thon in May 2007, but we still need funds to keep this project going for at least three years. Golden eagles mature and hopefully breed at age 5, so it is essential that we have the funds to keep the tracking going until she reaches breeding age. It will be very interesting to see where she finds a mate, builds a nest, and raises young."

Adoption of Virgil Caine would be a great project for a school class or a scout project, she noted. For more information about this project, call Reum at 540-474-3860 or email her at pareum@gmail.com.