Kelly M. wrote -

<<<I really believe that Bald Eagle predation is having a serious harmful
affect on the productivity of a number of colonial nesting birds. It is
much more persuasively demonstrated by field data than nesting failures or
colony abandonments from human disturbances due to homes, roads, boats,
clam-diggers, or Christmas Carolers. Unfortuntely, most colonies (all of
them in the Puget Sound basin I would venture to say) have been simultaneously
exposed to increasing Bald Eagle numbers as well as increasing human
disturbances as well as declining prey populations. >>>

No doubt that is the case. But it appears that eagles have likely always
been a threat. I say this because my mother's family grew up beside the
former Tsawwassen heronry which was located in the area of what is now
the 53A Street to the bluff to the west and Uplands to Windsor Avenue
area. A landmark of that hernory from at least the 1920s to the late
1950s was a bald eagle nest on a tall doug-fir snag just on the eastern
periphery of the heronry. The snag was bulldozed for the construction
of the power transmission lines from Ladner to Point Roberts in the
late 1950s. My mother can remember the day the eagle tree was felled.
Apparently the bulldozer operator did not feel very good about doing it
but he had his orders. The heron colony did not last very long with
the increased human distrubance that resulted from the construction of
the Deas Tunnel under the Fraser River in 1959, after which
Tsawwassen's status as a bedroom community for Vancouver commuters was
established. The herons relocated after a couple of years, part of the
original colony pioneering in the Reno Reno area of Point Roberts and
the rest relocating to Point Grey near UBC. I can remember as a
youngster my grandfather showing me the heronry during its last years,
a raucous place of foul-smelling birds atop the trees. He made sure
that I steered clear of the colony for my own safety.

--
Jack Bowling
Prince George, BC
jbowling at direct.ca