At Somerset Reservoir today there were two adult Bald Eagles, with a clear difference in size, suggesting a male and female.

Breeding Bird Atlas criteria say that a "pair observed in suitable nesting habitat during breeding" is a "probable."

Three possibilities for the pair we observed:
1) breeding pair which had already failed for some reason - eggs didn't hatch, or young succumbed to something
2) breeding pair which has not yet laid eggs
3) two eagles in transit

Today's observation is consistent with several years of casual reports, and specific reports last year and this year by VBBA atlassers - namely - that during the breeding season there are adult eagles consistently at the northern end of Somerset Reservoir. This year on 5/1, another atlassers, Sylvia Harris, observed an adult eagle which flew north toward Grout Pond, just as the pair did today. (Sylvia couldn't canoe fast enough to see where they went.)

Perhaps a portion of the grant obtained by Jeffords could be used to look for the nest of the "probable" nesting eagles somewhere in the vicinity of the northern Somerset Reservoir