SOUTHPORT, N.C. -- The search for one of Southport’s most recognizable birds is over.

• Thousands of birds went missing from Battery Island.
• Biologists say bald eagles were around the birds last season.
• They were later found near Cape Fear River.

Thousands of white ibises were recently found on the west side of the Cape Fear River. This comes after close to 20,000 ibises and their nests vanished from Battery Island.

"Last year in the second half of the nesting season some immature bald eagles started hanging around and they were preying on the big chicks that the ibis were raising. So they may have remembered that experience from last year and they're deciding to try out a different site this year,” said Lindsay Addison, who is a coastal biologist.

There are fewer than a thousand pairs of other species of birds on Battery Island this year.

The island is closed to the public through August.