Eagle Documents and Pictures

Avian Reproduction and the Egg:  http://people.eku.edu/ritchisong/avianreproduction.html

What To Expect, Week By Week (Click to enlarge)

Plumage 0-4 Weeks

Plumage 5-11 Weeks

Actual pix from NE Fl Nest 2013-2014

Feathers:  Eaglets progress through 3 different sets of feathers, including natal down, thermal down, and juvenile feathers.  Chicks are hatched with a coat of natal down. This down is very lilght in color and does not have much insulating ability, such that chicks must be brooded by an adult for warmth. Natal down is replaced by thermal down beginning around 10 days of age. Thermal down has very good insulating qualities and by 15 days hicks are typically able to thermoregulate on their own. The emergence of juvenile feathers, including contour and flight feathers, typically begins on or before 27 days.

Age progression: http://onthewingphotography.com/wings/2011/02/16/bald-eagles-one-to-five-years-old/

Add caption

Where are Eagle Ears:  http://eaglenest.blogs.wm.edu/2011/03/20/where-are-the-eagles-ears/

Courtship, Copulation, Eggs, and other things romantic:  http://raptorresource.blogspot.com/2014/02/courtship-copulation-eggs-and-other.html

Sex, violence, airplanes and comeback of the national bird: http://www.wm.edu/news/stories/2014/sex%2C-violence%2C-airplanes-and-the-comeback-of-the-national-bird123.php?utm_content=bufferf40f9&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Eagle Digestive System:  http://books.google.com/books?id=QMauaRiGOVEC&pg=PA27&lpg=PA27&dq=bald+eagle+digestive+system&source=bl&ots=zWJTDg17Hz&sig=GKgJNhZSqjILIkjdsiv3qWT5tbY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=c6hlUdi9CbHJ4AOim4HoCg&ved=0CHkQ6AEwDw#v=onepage&q=bald%20eagle%20digestive%20system&f=false

Eagle Feathers:  http://www.kwic.com/~pagodavista/schoolhouse/species/birds/body.htm

Stages of Eagle Development, as observed by MsO

Week	ACTION
1-2	Eat, poop, sleep, grow (1-2 oz every day) Eye sight good at 9 days
2-4	Lose baby down and grow woolly secondary down. One foot high. Grow pin and tail feathers, get white wig and clown feet. 18 in head to tail, wings 2.5 ft, wt 4-5 lbs (gain 4-5 oz every day)
4-5	24 inches head to tail, wingspan 3-4 ft, weigh 6-7 lbs. More feathered.
5-7	Continue to get dark juvie feathers. Stand upright.  Try to self feed.
7-9	Wingersizing and hovering. can self feed. Mantle. Weigh 8-9 lbs
9-10	Branching. Sleep outside nest or standing in nest. Fully feathered
10-12	Fledge (many do not survive first flight) Weight has gone from 2-3 oz to 10-12 lbs.
12-?	Practice flying. Learn to hunt prey by watching parents. Leave forever.

7200 feathers.  Live 20-30 yrs in wild, up to 50 yrs in captivity

eagles cannot swivel eyes, but can turn head 270 degrees

Number of eggs: (per Patent, mod at Decorah)

79% - 2

17% - 1

4% - 3

<1 - 4

Female fattens up before eggs to prepare for long hours incubating and brooding. Will lose weight caring for eaglets

Nest Diet (20 nests studied) (per samour, mod at FL)

Fish 56%

Birds 28%

Mammals 14%

Other 2%

Food order of preference: Stealing, Scavenging Carrion, and lastly, Hunting

A eagle can lift about 50% of its weight and can fly with 30% of its weight.

Mortality Rates: 30% die first year, only 1 in 10 live to be adult.

Study says 90% first hatched is female

More northern eagles (perhaps less use of DDT)

Female body length 35-37 inches, wind span 79-90 inches. Male 30-34 and 72-85. Avg weight 10-13 lb (with northern eagles at high end of range)

Eaglets have nest fidelity. Males usually settle within 38 miles of birth nest and females within 100 miles.

Eagles can fly at altitudes of 10,000 feet and at speed of 30-35 mph.

Signs of approaching egg laying: Intensified breathing, sometimes with rhythmic opening and closing of the beak. Head is drawn in and body feathers are fluffed out. The tail is kept horizontal or elevated. Then the tip of the tail starts making nodding movements with rhythmic depressions of the rump. These movements are almost invisible to gegin with, but increase in strength and end with a sudden elevation of the rump that marks the moment of egg laying.

Days between eggs: 5% 2 days, 72% 3 days, 20% 4 days, 3% 5 days



Eagles Will Not Abandon Chicks if Human's Touch:  http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-fiction-birds-abandon-young-at-human-touch

Eagle Deadbeat Dads, Cheating Wives, and Nest Intrusions:
www.wm.edu/research/ideation/science-and-technology/reality-show314.php

See, you hold your wings like this

Pipped and Zipped Egg

Brood Patch

Birdie at Harrison Mills Dreaming of a river full of fish

Eagle Digestive Tract

EAGLE STORY FOR CHILDREN

BY MsOls

  Once upon a time, two eagles fell in love and decided to have some babies. They picked a nest near Whitehorse, Yukon in Canada. Together they brought in soft grasses and made a nest bowl surrounded by stick rails.  Then dug a hole called an egg cup and the mama eagle laid three eggs in it.  Both the mama and the daddy sat on the eggs to keep them warm. This is called incubating the eggs. After 35 days, all three eggs hatched.

     In the beginning, the babies were covered in soft white fuzz, called baby down. They were not strong enough to hold their heads up straight to be fed, so we called them Bobbleheads.  While still babies, they stayed in the egg cup and were referred to as Hatchlings.  Mom or Dad had to sit on them to keep them warm and safe. This is called brooding.

     After a few days, they were able to climb out of the egg cup and crawl around the nest bowl. Now they were referred to as Nestlings.  At about two weeks old, they started to grow dark gray, woolly down to help keep them warm.  A parent would still sit on them if it was very cold, or when raining.  The babies grew very fast, especially their feet and beaks.

     Around one month old, they started to get bumps all over their bodies. Out of these bumps emerged dark brown or black feathers.  Shortly thereafter, they began to stand up and walk normally. They still crawled sometimes, but needed to build up their leg muscles.

     At six weeks, they began to flap their wings to make them strong. This is called wingersizing. The parents still bring in fish or animals to feed the nestlings, but they are trying to learn how to feed themselves. Soon they will know how to stand on a fish and tear off bites.

     As their wings grow stronger, they will begin to jump around and also up into the air. When the wind is good, they will go into the air and hover there for a few seconds before coming back down. This looks kind of scary, but is necessary training for learning to fly.

     Once they have learned how to self feed and to hover, they will begin branching. This means they will leave the flat nest and hop up onto the rails and poles.  If the nest was in a tree, they could jump onto the tree branches and limbs. They feel all grown up then, and may begin to sleep standing up like their parents do.

     When they are about 10-12 weeks old, they will fly for the very first time. This is called fledging and the eaglets will be called Fledglings.  Which tree do you think they will fly to?  They will stay near the nest for several more weeks and practice flying and to get food from their parents. They will also follow their parents to the river and learn how to catch their own fish.  Once they learn all that they need to know, the juveniles will fly away and live happily ever after.  (They will not get the white head and tail until five years old)

Eagle Deaths by Wind Energy:  http://news.yahoo.com/study-wind-farms-killed-67-eagles-5-years-160226373.html

Info about an Eagle's Weight:  The Body of an eagle is made for flying and for catching prey. To do these things, the body must be light in weight and very strong. To make their bodies lighter in weight, eagles have hollow bones. In some places, there are braces inside the bones to make them stronger. But many parts of the bones have nothing inside them them but air. As incredible as it may seem, the entire skeleton of a Bald eagle weighs only a little more than half a pound (272 grams).

When an eagle flaps its wings, most of the power for flying comes from the downward stroke of the wings. For this reason, the muscles that pull the wings down are much larger than the muscles that pull the wings up. The flight muscles are so Important to an eagle that they often account for half of the bird's total weight.

An eagle can fly faster or slower by changing the position of its wings. When It wants to fly fast, it turns the front edges of the wings into the wind and "cuts through" the air. When the eagle wants to slow itself down, it turns the wide surface of the wings into the wind, and the wings "drag" through the air. There is no room for a sloppy landing on top of a tall tree or on a cliff, so eagles have to be good at landing. To slow themselves for a landing, they spread their wings and tall down, and "drag" them through the air to act like brakes.

It is really amazing to see the many ways in which an eagle's body combines low weight with high strength. There doesn't seem to be an extra ounce of weight anywhere. For example, the feathers on a large eagle can be very sturdy but each feather weighs next to nothing. A Bald eagle has more than 7 thousand feathers, but all of them put together weighs less than 21 ounces (586 grams). If you took 30 of these feathers in your hand, they would weigh less than a penny. (Written by Christine Caro Mudd)

State of Virginia Success Story:  http://www.vagazette.com/news/va-vg-center-for-conservation-biology-records-more-than-200-bald-eagle-nests-on-james-river-20131023,0,7813364.story

Egg Tooth

Hack Tower

Lucy's Story:  http://www.eagles4kids.com/daily-updates/2013/1/14/january-14-2012-lets-recap-the-situation-with-lucy.html

Lucy's Foot Much Improved

Lucy Incubating Egg in Snow

Info About Eagle Talons:  http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/eagle/Talons.html

How eagles can sleep on a tree limb without falling off:  http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/why-birds-can-sleep-on-branches-and-not-fall-off/281969/?utm_source=btn-facebook-pckt

One Way to Identify Male or Female

National Eagle Repository:  http://www.nbcwashington.com/investigations/Protecting-Eagles-in-Life-and-Death-265758081.html?_osource=SocialFlowFB_DCBrand#

Eagle Trasmitter

Track Oklahoma Eaglets Migration:  http://www.suttoncenter.org/pages/eagle_tracking/39

Eagle Sounds:  http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/bald_eagle/sounds

Beak and Feet:  http://www.infovisual.info/02/059_en.html

Eagle Intelligence:  http://www.starescue.org/htm/bird-intelligence/bird-brained.htm

Eagle Head Parts:  http://s1138.photobucket.com/user/elfenruler/media/About%20Bald%20Eagles/EagleHead_zps6abbfefe.jpg.html

Pin Feathers on Wing

Feathers:  http://people.eku.edu/ritchisong/feathers.html

Nictatating Membrane

Eagle Tongue:  http://eaglenest.blogs.wm.edu/2012/05/11/female-3-tongue-closeup/

Gender Differences:  http://www.ehow.com/facts_5972433_difference-male-female-bald-eagles.html

Eagle Chick Development:  http://eaglenest.blogs.wm.edu/2011/04/30/bald-eagle-chick-development/

Threats to Eagle Survival:  http://www.eagles.org/vu-study/survival/threats-to-survival.php

Bald Eagle Fact Sheet #1:  http://www.baldeagleinfo.com/eagle/eagle-facts.html

Bald Eagle Fact Sheet #2:  http://www.learner.org/jnorth/www/critters/eagle/826572782.html

Bald Eagle Fact Sheet #3:  http://www.baldeagleinfo.com/

Bald Eagle Fact Sheet #4:  http://www.ccbbirds.org/what-we-do/research/species-of-concern/virginia-eagles/facts-about-eagles/

Bald Eagle Fact Sheet #5:  http://www.hornbyeagles.com/eaglefaq.htm

And more Eagle Facts:  http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/eagle/indexCurrent.html

Male Eagle Acts as Foster Parent:  http://www.wxpr.org/post/bald-eagle-models-foster-parenting#.UbvMTqIy0Kt.facebook

Links to Other Cameras:  http://www.beakspeak.com/

Links to Eagle Cameras:  http://eagleholic.wordpress.com/bald-eagle-cams/

Hatching Asynchrony and Brood Reduction:  http://www.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/Brood_Reduction.html

‘Siblicide’ is the behaviour of siblings killing each other. It’s most commonly seen in large birds – raptors such as the Verreaux eagle, that hatch their eggs a few days apart. The dominant (usually the first-born) chick instinctively kills the weaker one – sometimes by pushing it out of the nest, or by pecking and battering it to death with its sharp little beak. Other times, the weaker chick will die indirectly, from starvation, bullied out of eating by it’s older sibling/siblings…

As awful and cruel as this all sounds, siblicide gives the strongest nestling/nestlings the greatest chance of survival – the complete undivided attention of the parent birds who can then focus all of their energy on the remaining stronger chick (It is likely that the other chick was born as an insurance policy, in case something should happen to the first-born or stronger chick).

Photo taken from http://www.blackeagleswb.com

How to Handle an Injured Raptor:  http://www.vetmed.auburn.edu/home/programs-and-centers/southeastern-raptor-center/about-the-center/injured-raptors2

Bald Eagle Nests:  http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/eagle/NestAbout.html

Protecting Birds From Electrocution:  http://www.publicpower.org/Media/magazine/ArticleDetail.cfm?ItemNumber=10208

Laws That Protect Bald Eagles:  http://www.fws.gov/midwest/eagle/protect/

Excerpt from document STATUS OF THE BALD EAGLE
IN BRITISH COLUMBIA
5.2 Canada
Contrary to published reports (Lincer et al.
1979), the Bald Eagle is offered no direct
protection in Canada under Federal law, other
than the prohibition of import or export of
eagles and eagle parts under the Convention
on International Trade in Endangered
Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)
convention, administered under the Export
and Import Permits Act. Raptors, including
the Bald Eagle, are not included in the
Migratory Birds Convention Act of l9l6
(C.W.S. 1978). Under the British-North
American Act (B.N.A.), each province has
jurisdiction over the wildlife within its borders, and various laws have been enacted in
all provinces offering some protection to the
Bald Eagle. Two provinces, Ontario and New
Brunswick, have passed Endangered Species
legislation, and the Bald Eagle is listed as
Endangered in both provinces (Brownell and
Oldham l983).

Eagle Watcher's Guide and Fact Sheets:   http://www.friendsofblackwater.org/watchersguide.pdf

Nest Building  :http://www.dvrconline.org/builder.html

Largest Eagle Nest of All Time:  http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/647793

General Info re Nests:  http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/eagle/NestAbout1.html

How an Eaglet Gets Out of the Egg:  http://eaglenest.blogs.wm.edu/2010/03/05/how-do-i-get-out-of-this-egg/

Three Eagles Lock Talons:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1214139/Pictured-Three-eagles-lock-talons-plunge-ground-mid-air-battle-fish.html

Egg Size Comparison

Eagle Plummage, 10 days to 5 years:  http://www.swbemc.org/plummage.html

Pattern For Feather Grow

Feather Biology:   http://askabiologist.asu.edu/explore/feather-biology

Terms for Eagle Watchers:  http://www.hancockwildlife.org/forum/viewtopic.php?topic=215183#215183

More Terms:  http://raptorresource.blogspot.com/2012/03/decorah-eagle-diction-aerie-and-alpha.html

Eagle Eye Test

Eagle Cloud

            The Fledgling
I hear a whispering in the wind
An ancient voice beckoning me to come
It unlocks a yearning deep inside
A primal memory of soaring freely
I lean into the wind and feel its power
I stretch my weak wings and feel its caress
The longing grows as the days march onward
I practice and practice anxiously waiting
The voice becomes stronger - urging me on
I face into the wind and I know - it is time
I flap with all there is within me
Suddenly I am free of the nest
I am where I was destined to be
I severed my earthly bonds
And became one with the wind.
©Wings - 2013

Professional photos of eagles bathing:  http://tonymarkle.zenfolio.com/p371531810/h5845E2FE#h5b63e81a

More Professional photos:  http://ari1982.smugmug.com/Avian/Raptors/Bald-Eagle/26364793_mKB2Rz#!i=2211054108&k=8NTvkRK
and   http://sassephoto.smugmug.com/