In today's Sports section of the Columbus paper (p. C12) appeared this note: "A section of the Walking Trail at Magee Marsh Wildlife Area will be closed until further notice. The closing came about because a pair of bald eagles is setting up housekeeping at a nearby nest." A nest right overhead temporarily closed the bird trail a few years back, until the eagles decamped (apparently for some reason other than walkers on the trail) thereafter. Bald eagles are almost certainly more numerous now in Ohio than they were in the unspoiled habitats of three hundred years ago. They are no longer rare, and they are officially no longer officially endangered, either. I believe there were four nests in largely urban Franklin County last year, where five years ago there were no nesting records at all. This happy circumstance may have come about in part because nest sites were protected, but things have changed, and if this practice were universal protective perimeters would now cover a lot of real estate. Think how many more acres would be inaccessible if far rarer and more endangered Ohio nesters were thus protected! How many acres would closed if a golden-winged warbler nest was found? A solitary sandpiper's? A merlin's? A golden-crowned kinglet's? A golden eagle's? Admittedly, nesting bald eagle pairs vary quite a bit in how tolerant they are of human activities nearby, but every time I hear about the closing of large areas to benign visitation in order to avoid disturbing them--and only them--I recall the photos at http://www.ohiobirds.org/news.php?News_ID=172 .........this always gives me a smile, and makes me more hopeful about their recovery. Bill Whan Columbus ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]