Decorah eagle comes full circle

She's back.

After a four-month, 900-mile tour of Minnesota and Wisconsin, D1, the world-famous, wired Decorah eagle, has returned to Decorah.

“Who would have ever guessed? Not me,” said Bob Anderson, the raptor expert who fitted her with a satellite transmitter this summer.

Satellite data confirm that D1 roosted Wednesday night in a tree just north of Palisades Park on the east edge of Decorah.

“She is so near to my house that if the transmitter was turned on I could get a beep from my doorstep,” said Anderson, director of the Raptor Resource Project, whose nest-cam website has been visited more than 213 million times this year.

Anderson said he picked up her signal near the Yellow River in Allamakee County on Tuesday morning but was unable to track it to the bird herself. On Wednesday morning, Anderson and a friend returned to the area and picked up a weak signal, which grew in strength as they traveled toward it on gravel roads.

They found her perched in a tree on the top of a hill in a farm field about one-third mile north of the Yellow River.

Anderson said he sneaked within 200 feet of her to photograph the young eagle.

“I brought along a road-killed squirrel and was tossing it out in front of me as I approached,” he said.

Anderson said his friend, who was watching with binoculars, said D1 would raise her head and look interested whenever he lobbed the squirrel.

But when he got within 200 feet, D1 flew, prompting Anderson to say, “I'm glad to see that she's developed a fear of people.”

After D1 flew, Anderson and his friend followed her and another immature eagle in a north-drifting soar.

When last seen Wednesday, she was about 400 feet high and 10 miles east of Decorah approaching the Upper Iowa River valley, Anderson said.

D1, which signifies Decorah first satellite, was fitted with a satellite transmitter on July 12 to help Anderson and other researchers learn what becomes of young northern eagles after they leave the nest. She headed north from the nest on Aug. 14, traveled about 300 miles to the Boundary Waters area of northeast Minnesota, then gradually worked her way back south.