Old Navy Island

Navy Island Earl Plato

I visited old nature friend, Bob Chambers recently at his Snyder home. I respect Bob for his vast knowledge of the Niagara area. I had some things to share and a few questions to ask of him. “Bob, go back in time. Do you remember the colonies of common terns on the islands above the Falls circa 1950’s? When did you last see the eagle’s nest on the north end of Navy Island?” I shared the following with him from the late nature writer, Edwin Way Teale’s account written here in Niagara in1959. “… we all drove back to the falls. The object of our attention was a remarkable colony of common terms. They were living dangerously, nesting close to the brink of the Horseshoe falls. A tapered mass of rock shaped like a destroyer cut the rush of water and extended to hardly more than forty to fifty feet from the lip of the cataract. Here more than 600 terns were nesting. … on this island stonghold the birds of the colony were safe from predators. Neither man nor beast can reach them. … from birth the young terns are surrounded by the continuous roaring of the falling water. … it seems to us so close to the brink of disaster the light and young graceful terns were well equipped to survive .” Both Bob and I remember the terns. What do you see now on the rocks? Gulls. Ring-billed gulls - lots of them for years now. We believe that the gulls took over as they are a more aggressive species. What do you think?
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Teale continued, “We returned to the colony again the next day this time with Roy W. Sheppard, retired Canadian entomologist ,and the man who has stuied the natural history of the Niagara region more thoroughly than anyone else I know. Other birds were also active now along the brink. Martins and rough-winged swallows coursed back and forth often only inches above the tumbling water.” Note: No mention of ring-billed gulls back then. When did they take over?
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Navy Island -1959. Both Bob and I recall the bald eagle’s large nest on the north end of Navy Island.
Bob estimated his last sighting about 1957. My recollection was a few years earlier. Here is what Teale wrote in 1959, “On Navy Island, two or three miles above the cataract Roy Sheppard showed us a bald eagle’s nest now deserted. … in recent years the only eagles seen in the vicinity have been transients. Great horned owls raised a brood in the abandoned Navy Island nest. Later it was occupied by raccoons.”
In 1998 the late Gene Muma (Mr. Navy Island), Bud Henningham, and myself looked for evidence of the large nesting tree. We found a huge fallen maple not far from the north tip. There was a scattering of branches that could have served as part of a nesting structure. Not far from here the M.N. Resources put a nesting platform for any bald eagle pair. Next time on the Niagara Parkway slow down and see if you can sight the structure high on a tree.