Out & About: 3 early birds kick off CdA eagle gathering

OUTSEE – The annual fall-winter congregation of bald eagles at Lake Coeur d’Alene has started, barely.

Carrie Hugo, U.S. Bureau of Land Management wildlife biologist, counted three bald eagles in Wolf Lodge Bay on Tuesday during the first of the weekly bald eagle surveys she’ll do this season.

The eagles provide  a popular wildlife viewing attraction as the birds are lured to the northeast corner of the lake from mid-November into January to feast on the spawning kokanee that stack up in the bay.

A record 273 bald eagles was counted here on Dec. 29, 2011.

“There was no count this early last year, so I have no comparison,” Hugo said, but she added that the eagle numbers can build rapidly. “The count on Nov. 20, 2012, was 64.”

Popular eagle-watching areas include Higgens Point or motorists can exit Interstate 90 at Wolf Lodge and drive to points along Highway 97, especially in Beauty Bay.

Eagle-watching cruise boat tours are scheduled in November and December leaving from the Coeur d’Alene Resort

Two Nov. 30 cruises offered especially for local veterans and military filled in two days when announced last week by local BLM officials.

Author Barry Lopez to speak at SCC

OUTWRITE – Barry Lopez, one of America’s premier nature writers, will give Spokane Community College’s first 2013-14 President Speakers Series lecture at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Lair-Student Center auditorium, Building 6.

Topics for his free presentation include sustainability from a global perspective and ways writing and environmental concerns intersect.

Lopez won the National Book Award for “Arctic Dreams,” a study of the Far North, its terrain, wildlife and history of the Eskimo and the region’s explorers. Other nonfiction works include “About this Life” and  “Of Wolves and Men,” a National Book Award finalist.

Spokanite wins ski day with Tommy Moe

OUTGOING – Sally Cramer of Spokane has won a private ski day with Olympic medalist Tommy Moe on Jan. 8 at  Lost Trail Powder Mountain in Montana.

Cramer’s name was drawn from 18,500 entries in the Win Your Own Mountain contest offered by Glacier Country Tourism to tout the region’s powder snow.

Cramer and her 10 guests will have a full day of exclusive private skiing with Moe on 1,800 acres of terrain at Lost Trail Powder in the Bitterroot Valley.