Rising above the trees surrounding D'Olive Bay, the eagle clutched a still wriggling mullet in her talons.

She soared north following the path of a narrow creek and glided toward a massive nest.

At her approach, two heads popped up above the tangle of sticks wedged in the top of the tallest pine tree on the point. As the mother returned to the nest, the father, who had been sitting on a branch in a dead tree about 100 feet away, took to the sky and headed west over the lower Delta.

The eagle pair are one of about 100 pairs now nesting in Alabama, part of an amazing recovery for a species pushed to the brink of extinction, largely by the pesticide DDT.

Bald eagles were wiped out of Alabama. Prior to a reintroduction effort begun in 1984 by the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, there had not been a successful bald eagle nest in Alabama since 1949, according to state officials.

Between 1984 and 1991, state biologists released 91 juvenile eagles in Alabama. The biologists documented the first successful nest in 1991. Since that time, more than 500 bald eagles have been hatched in the wild in the state.

Alabama also provides a winter home to eagles from points north. Eagles living in places where lakes and rivers freeze migrate south each winter, with many overwintering in north Alabama.

Greg Harber, with the Birmingham branch of the Audubon Society, said birds are nesting on Lake Purdy, along the Cahaba, near Pell City, and along most of the other large bodies of water in the north part of the state.

The Mobile-Tensaw Delta is known as an eagle hot spot. The hundreds of thousands of acres of uninhabited rivers, creeks and wetlands provide ideal habitat. There are reports of birds nesting this year in Bay Minette Creek, around 12 Mile Island, on the Tombigbee near McIntosh, near Gravine Island, and just south of the Causeway. In addition, there are also nests reported on Fish River and Fowl River.

Bald eagle nest 13 Gallery: Bald eagle nest

The pair photographed for this article are nesting in a hidden clump of trees just south of the Causeway. Long lenses were used to avoid disturbing the birds, which continued to feed their young while being photographed.

The birds are believed to be the same pair that nested in a tree on the edge of U.S. 98 in Daphne. That tree fell over last year.

Bald eagles mate for life, and usually return to the same nest year after year.

Sitting in the nest, the mother began tearing bits of flesh from the mullet with her beak and holding it out for each chick in turn. The chicks gently tugged the small pieces out of their mother’s beak and swallowed them.

The babies sported a thin layer of black feathers on their heads and bodies, and their bills were a dirty gray. They looked more like buzzards than bald eagles. They won’t develop the distinctive white head and tail feathers and bright yellow beak until they reach maturity, a year or more after they leave the nest.

The babies are about the size of big chickens right now, probably around six weeks old, judging by their black feathers. Younger eagles are covered in gray fuzz. In another six weeks, the birds will be able to fly, though they will still depend on their parents for food for several more months. In studies around the nation, scientists have estimated that close to 75 percent of bald eagle chicks will die before they reach their third birthday, with the highest mortality coming during their first winter on their own.

Roger Clay, a wild bird biologist with the state Department of Conservation, said he knows of eight pairs of eagles nesting around the Delta in Mobile and Baldwin counties The nests are unmistakable, he said, measuring three to five feet across.

“They love those big dominant pines,” Clay said, describing the type of trees eagles pick to build their nest. Indeed, the nest below the Causeway sits in the largest tree around, nestled in a crook where several big branches split off, about 50 feet off the ground.