The Wildlife Center of Virginia is releasing a bald eagle at Westover Plantation on the James River.

Under gray and threatening skies, Ed Clark jumps up on the tailgate of his pickup truck and launches into a speech. Behind him in the covered flatbed is a small cage, a travel kennel for a medium-sized dog. But the 60 people listening in rapt attention didn’t go out of their way on this Labor Day to hear Clark introduce a dog.

A bald eagle that captured the public’s attention when it underwent surgery to remove a growth on its beak will remain at the Wildlife Center of Virginia as an eagle ambassador.

The Wildlife Center of Virginia is making the first triple release of bald eagles in its history.

You no longer need an eagle eye to find the nests of our nation’s symbol. The locations of all known bald-eagle nests in Virginia are available on a Web site developed by the Center for Conservation Biology at the College of William and Mary and Virginia Commonwealth University. “We believe that breeding sites may be better protected in the long term if they are known to the public,“ the center said in a statement.

Once inhospitable because of pesticides, a nearly 40-mile stretch of the tidal, freshwater James now harbors one of the country’s top concentrations of eagles, herons and other fish-eating birds.

The 10-month-old bald eagle expanded his wings and soared into the gray skies over historic Westover Plantation on the James River in Charles City County. Less than two weeks ago, the bird had been found at a Suffolk Island landfill, dehydrated and suffering from pesticide poisoning.