In January 1981, volunteer birders and Monterey County park rangers counted 29 living bald eagles at Nacimiento and San Antonio lakes. Bald eagles were hard to find in those years. The Tribune later recalled that its own staff could not locate a live one to photograph for the story.

The birds have done well since then. The program that once showed them to the public is harder to pin down. Monterey County's 2026 special-events list has no eagle tour on it, and no winter schedule has been posted. Meanwhile, eagles keep appearing in public sighting records at both lakes, including in the middle of summer at Nacimiento. Unless a guided boat turns up on the schedule, eagle watching at the lake this winter is something you do from your own trail, dock or boat.

When eagle season had a boat and a schedule

The 1981 count framed these birds as seasonal visitors. Ranger David Chiaramonte, who organized it, told The Tribune that the eagles wintered mainly at San Antonio Lake between late October and April, "driven south by storms in the Pacific Northwest." He also said officials wanted to know how many wintered at the two lakes so they could make land-use decisions.

Three years later the county built a way to show them off. According to Monterey County Weekly, the Monterey Parks Department approved construction of Eagle 1 in 1984. It was a flat-decked observation boat with rows of pew seating, built to carry tourists and birders along the shores of Lake San Antonio. The paper's 2009 account describes guests watching an introductory documentary at the lodge, picking up binoculars, and then cruising the shoreline. Its listing gave Eagle Watch tours as 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on February 7 and 21, at $12 for adults.

The same story shows what the guide was actually teaching. Once an immature bald eagle had been spotted in a lakeside oak, she walked the group onto it one landmark at a time:

"See the downed limb on the bank? Look straight up from that snag, and to the right. It's sitting on the right leaning branch."

On the Nacimiento shoreline, that skill is yours to supply.

What the record shows since

The June entry is the one that matters for Nacimiento. A bald eagle on the lake in mid-June is out of step with birds that arrive with Pacific Northwest storms and leave in April. That fits Los Padres ForestWatch, which says bald eagle breeding has been confirmed at Lake Nacimiento. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife says resident breeding pairs generally spend the winter near their nesting territories. Migrants arrive in fall or early winter and may stay through February or March, sometimes into April. So a lake with a resident pair gets two kinds of eagles in winter: birds that never left, and birds that just arrived.

The trees around the lake help explain why. Travel Paso describes Nacimiento's eagles nesting in and soaring above the lake's tall gray pines and calls them easy to spot year-round. A 2025 paper in the California Fish and Wildlife Scientific Journal found that large gray pines growing near many reservoirs in central interior California give eagles highly suitable nest sites. In that region, known nests rose from 4 in 2011 to 31 in 2024, which the authors report as an average annual increase of 19 percent. The authors note this matches an 18 percent rate reported for the reestablished population in central coastal California. That study covered the Sierra foothills and Central Valley, not Nacimiento itself. It does describe the same kind of gray-pine reservoir shoreline that surrounds the lake.

Reading the Nacimiento shoreline yourself

Start with the guide's method. Eagles sit still, and an immature bird's mottled brown blends into oak and pine. The Tribune's account says eagles at the two lakes hunt fish by day and are usually perched in a shoreline tree, watching for fish near the surface. The California Watchable Wildlife listing for Lake San Antonio names shoreline snags as roosts. Scan for dead limbs and the tops of tall pines over water, then use a fixed landmark to talk the person next to you onto the bird.

These are the named spots on the Nacimiento side, from easiest to most rugged:

1. The "5 K Dog Path." This groomed loop starts at the marina trailhead and climbs through oak-studded hillsides with lake views. It is the simplest way to put a pair of binoculars over the water before work.
2. Eagles Ridge Campground. Travel Paso describes many of its campsites as walk-in, with exceptional lake views. That elevation helps when you are scanning a far shoreline.
3. The Lake Nacimiento Shoreline Trail. It starts near the Resort lodge and has lake views. AllTrails warns that unmarked trails like this one make it easy to get turned around, and a May 2026 hiker review there describes the second part as mostly overgrown but easy to follow. Expect brush on the far half and keep track of the way back.
4. From the water. Travel Paso notes that wildlife, bald eagles included, can be seen from a boat or from the trail system. A slow drift along a pine-lined arm puts you at the angle the old Eagle 1 passengers had.

The drive north, and the terms at both gates

Lake San Antonio is still where the winter crowd of eagles was centered in 1981. Travel Paso still calls it a popular winter habitat for bald and golden eagles, with grebes, red-tailed hawks, swans and American coots along its trails. The February 2026 sighting came from the north end, near Pleyto. Pleyto was an 1890s stagecoach stop between Gilroy and Los Angeles, with a store, a hotel, a post office and a blacksmith. The area was flooded in 1965 to make the reservoir, and its remains lie in the lake near what is now Cemetery Cove. The North Shore is the water-access side. The South Shore has more than 26 miles of trails.

CDFW names December through March as the best viewing months statewide. Both lakes are now on off-season terms for that stretch. Here is what each operator posts:

The Resort's off-season and the county's winter-rate season end a month apart, and the Resort says boat rental times vary by season. Call ahead before a February morning on the water. Travel Paso still says Monterey County "often offers" eagle-watching tours at Lake San Antonio and suggests asking about nature tours at the welcome office. A call there is the surest way to learn whether a guided boat will run this winter. Either way, with breeding confirmed at Nacimiento, there are eagles in the pines along your own shoreline.

Eagles sit in the same oak and gray-pine country that gives a Nacimiento parcel its value: open water, mature trees and room to look out. If you are thinking about how your lake property or acreage would show to a buyer who cares about that setting, Hertha Wolff-Arend is glad to walk it with you. Request a personalized country-home consultation and valuation.