A well established population of bald eagles are filling the sky and dotting the tree top horizon along the Des Moines river in Marion County.

Marion County Naturalist Marla Mentz recently went on an eagle watching adventure at Horn’s Ferry Bridge on the banks of the Des Moines river and noticed the current boom in population of our national symbol, “Straight across from the river here is the Gladys Black Eagle Refuge, and the whole corridor there with all those trees are known as historic roost sites for migrating bald eagles, as well as our resident birds, but we do get birds from Canada and Minnesota and other places that winter here so it looks like we have a larger population,” Mertz says. “So there can be anywhere from 20 to 125 eagles that you can view from below the Red Rock Dam.”