Another Great Golden Eagle Spring Migration Season!
Photograph by Brandy Baker
A beautiful day for watching and learning about migrating golden eagles in the Mentasta Mountains, March 29, 2025.
July 17, 2025
Carol McIntyre and Ray Hander - Guest Columnists
Since 2020, we’ve been studying the spring migration of golden eagles along the southern slopes of the Mentasta Mountains. One of the goals of our studies is to get a better idea of how many older golden eagles (those age four and older) are migrating through this area as they head back to their nesting territories.
The field work occurs from mid-March through early April, corresponding to the time that older eagles migrate through the area.
During this time, we conduct daily watches from a site about one mile north of Twin Lakes along the Nabesna Road and record the number of migrating golden eagles that we see each hour from that site.
Our count data indicates that this area is one of the most important spring migration corridors for golden eagles in Alaska.
Between March 20 and April 8 (over about 108 watch hours), we detected 563 golden eagles migrating through the area. This included 52 streaming by on the afternoon of March 29 during what has become the annual spring science fling at the Avens Alaska Lodge.
Spending time in this beautiful area watching hundreds of golden eagles soaring by on their way back to their nesting territories is a great way to welcome spring. Started as an afternoon eagle watch in April 2023, the spring science fling was expanded in 2024 and 2025 to include sessions on properties of lake ice, aquatic invertebrate ecology, aurora science, large mammal ecology, natural history field sketching, and the ecology of the local area.
The weekend event is spearheaded and hosted by the awesome Rego family at Avens Alaska (formerly Wrangell Mountain Wilderness Lodge) and the awesome staff at the Wrangell Institute for Science and Education (aka WISE).
Aside from enjoying watching golden eagles gliding by our afternoon perch, spring fling participants learned a bit about the flight dynamics of migrating golden eagles and how our studies are helping to expand our understanding of their ecology in Alaska. We plan to continue our studies in March 2026 and hope we can continue to share this experience with others for years to come.
