Mid-Winter Eagle Survey at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge

With 14 different sites spanning all across the Refuge, it took a lot of people to make the 2026 Mid-winter Eagle Survey happen. It is thanks to the massive volunteer support that the survey can continually be conducted year after year. During Blackwater's first Mid-winter Eagle Survey in 1980, only 24 eagles were recorded. Now, 46 years later, we had a record-breaking 329 eagles counted! That's over a 13x increase from the first year to the most recent year! This recovery is in large part thanks to the Endangered Species Act and the work of many amateur and professional conservationists around the country.