Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[glogdog]

tulsa - thanks so much for the Oklahoma information.  Our forum has at least 2 threads on nests in OK - Sooner Lake and Sequoyah National.  Great suggestion on looking up other states too!

[glogdog]

So how does a Bald Eagle compare in weight to some of the other raptors?  I've chosen a few of the more familiar ones.  We'll compare Males and Females too and this is an average weight:

Bald Eagle:  Male - 9lbs  Female - 11.5lbs
 
Turkey Vultures:  Male - 4.5 to 5.4lbs   Female - 4lbs 6oz to 5lbs 2oz
Osprey:  Male - 3lbs 2oz   Female - 3lbs 7oz
Cooper's Hawk:  Male - 12oz   Female - 1lb 2oz
Red-Tailed Hawk:  Male - 2lbs 4oz   Female - 2lbs 11oz
Golden Eagle:  Male - 8lbs 10oz   Female - 10lbs 5oz
Peregrine Falcon:  Male - 1lb 4oz   Female - 1lb 12oz
American Kestrel:  Male - 4oz   Female - 5oz
California Condor: (not classified by sex) - 18lbs to 31lbs  (wow!)   

[glogdog]

We've looked at the differences in weight of Bald Eagles vs other raptors.  Let's take a look at the differences in Speed of Flight:

Bald Eagle:                        36-44 (migrating)

Golden Eagle:                     28-32 (migrating)
                                         120 (diving to escape a peregrine falcon)
Northern Harrier:                14-38, average 24 (migrating)
Sharp-Shinned Hawk:          28 (level flight)
                                         16-60, average 30 (migrating)
Cooper's Hawk:                   21-55, average 29 (migrating)
Red-tailed hawk:                 20-40, average 29 (migrating)
                                         120 (dive-estimate)                                         
American Kestrel:                16-36, average 24 (migrating)
Peregrine Falcon:                 28-32 (flapping/gliding flight)
                                          62 (level flapping flight)
                                          175-200 (dive)
                                          273 (dive-estimate based on analysis of motion picture)

(Sources: Broun and Goodwin 1943; also Terres 1980, Kerlinger 1989, Tennesen 1992)
These stats and weight stats above found in Raptors, The Birds of Prey by Scott Weidensaul

[frehaws]

from "The Bald Eagle's View of American History", by C.H. Coleman, illustrated by Joanne Friar, 2006 some interesting facts.
1.  When the Europeans settled in America there were as many bald eagles living in America as there are people today living in the city of Boston.

2. As Meriweather Lewis and William Clark went  searching for a route west they reached Black Eagle Falls. Today it is known as Montana. The party was looking for food when a bald eagle dropped a salmon too heavy for it to carry to its nest. That salmon fed them all that day.

3. During the Civil War, a Wisconsin regiment adopted  a bald eagle. The soldiers called the bird, "Old Abe". Old Abe would scream warnings when the enemy attacked, he dodged bullets or flew above them for 36 battles. After the war ended Old Abe lived another 16 years. Other bald eagles were not so lucky. Engineers  built a dam across Black Eagle Falls. By 1900 the number of eagles living in America equaled half the population of today's city of Boston.

4. Bald eagles flew above the shor in North Carolina when Wilbur and Orville Wright brought their glider there in 1900. The brothers discussed how the eagles could soar and stay over one area without flapping its wings. The Wrights believed the  eagles achieved a perfect balance among wings that lift, breezes that push, and gravity that pulls. The brothers thought if they could build a glider that could soar and remain stationary as the eagles did, they could attach an engine to it and fly.

[glogdog]

frehaws - thank you so much for your trivia.  So interesting, especially the Wright brothers info.  First time I've read that. 

[glogdog]

I found some very interesting information on one of Amy's RRP Blogs dated April 27, 2012.  " So how old are Bald Eagles as a species?  Birds began to appear in the fossil record between 144 and 66 million years ago.  These ancestral birds gradually diverged into separate species.  Kites, then ancestors of today's Accipitridae, emerged tens of millions of years ago.  Like modern eagles (but not all Accipitridae) they are believed to have scavenged and hunted fish.  The first eagles descended from kites roughly 36 million years ago, and the earliest known fossil remains that closely resemble the bald eagle date back to about a million years ago."  Thank You Amy, for this interesting information.

According to Mark Stalmaster, fossil eagle bones are well represented in ancient tar deposits in California and remains from Indian middens are abundant. He also goes on to say that bald eagles probably evolved from the scavenging Asian and Australasian kites of the genus Haliastur. Today the Indian Brahminy kite is perhaps the closest living link of the sea eagles (bald eagles) to their past ancestors. (Remember, the bald eagles' scientific name is Haliaeetus leucocephalus which means 'sea eagle with white head'.)

I did a google search curious to see what an Indian Brahminy Kite looks like and found a nice pic.  It does look like a Bald Eagle! 

[glogdog]

This post is going to be a little bit different.  I don't know why but this popped into my mind and that is an "Eagle Scout".  The words 'eagle' and 'scout' put together.  It's a very distinguished award, one to be very proud of when obtained. So I did a little google search and what better website to go to than the National Eagle Scout Association.  Just to share a few tidbits: 

The very first Eagle Scout was Arthur Rose Eldred, a member of Troop 1 in Oceanside, New York.  He was notified August 12, 1912 and became the Boy Scouts of America's first Eagle Scout.  The number of Eagle Scouts rose to over 30,000 by the end of the decade.  In 1982, Alexander Holsinger of Normal, Illinois, became the one-millionth Eagle Scout.  Here is the Eagle Scout pledge: "I reaffirm my allegiance to the three promises of the Scout Oath.  I thoughtfully recognize and take upon myself the obligations and responsibilities of an Eagle Scout.  On my honor I will do my best to make my training and example, my rank and my influence, count strongly for better Scouting and for better citizenship in my troop, in my community, and in my contacts with other people.  To this I pledge my sacred honor."

Enjoy reading about the interesting history of the "Eagle Scout" award.  It is a very respected title as is the respect we all have for the Bald Eagle. 

http://www.nesa.org/PDF/58-435.pdf

[RubyRed246]

My husband is an Eagle Scout. There is a quality about them that stays forever. Thank you for this post.

[glogdog]

yw, Ruby.   

A good deal of a raptor's day may be spent doing nothing, as this study of wintering bald eagles on the lower Connecticut River shows. Note that immature eagles because of their less polished hunting skills, must spend more time looking for food.  This information from Scott Weidensaul's book Raptors, The Birds of Prey.

Percentage of Time         Adults       Immatures

Perching                             93.2           76.5

Passive flight                        3.2             5.2

Active flight                          2.2           11.3

Feeding                                1.2             3.7

Waiting                                  .2             3.3

[glogdog]

In the book The Bald Eagle, Haunts and Habits of a Wilderness Monarch, co-author Jon Gerrard talks about Eagles being around when the Europeans first arrived in North America.  Though that number may never be known with certainty, he goes on to say that they nested on both coasts and along every major river and large lake in the interior from Florida to Baja California in the South and from Labrador to Alaska in the North.  Needless to say there were many.  An interesting notation found on page 3 is as follows:

"On Manhattan Island, New York, in the mid-1800's the Bald Eagle was extremely abundant on the floating ice of the Hudson River and sometimes brought its captive fish to the trees in the park, there to eat them or as often to quarrel about them with its fellow. At about the same time along the Mississippi River, near Keokuk, Iowa, the air was "simply alive" with eagles feeding on offal discarded by the pork houses.  We suspect there were between a quarter million and a half a million Bald Eagles on the continent when Europeans first arrived."

[baziunc]

In the book The Bald Eagle, Haunts and Habits of a Wilderness Monarch, co-author Jon Gerrard talks about Eagles being around when the Europeans first arrived in North America.  Though that number may never be known with certainty, he goes on to say that they nested on both coasts and along every major river and large lake in the interior from Florida to Baja California in the South and from Labrador to Alaska in the North.  Needless to say there were many.  An interesting notation found on page 3 is as follows:

"On Manhattan Island, New York, in the mid-1800's the Bald Eagle was extremely abundant on the floating ice of the Hudson River and sometimes brought its captive fish to the trees in the park, there to eat them or as often to quarrel about them with its fellow. At about the same time along the Mississippi River, near Keokuk, Iowa, the air was "simply alive" with eagles feeding on offal discarded by the pork houses.  We suspect there were between a quarter million and a half a million Bald Eagles on the continent when Europeans first arrived."

glogdog, thank you.  I so much enjoyed reading your post!  What a wonderful passage about Manhattan and Keokuk - it made those scenes come to life in my mind.  It would be incredible to see such in person!

[glogdog]

yw baz.

The taxonomic system used today was created by an eighteenth-century Swedish naturalist, Carolus Linnaeus (born Carl von Linee). He drew up a hierarchical system that starts with the great kingdoms of plant and animals and with each level or taxon, becomes progressively more and more specific. Linnaeus created what is known as binomial nomenclature (scientific names) that are based on Latin and Greek. Each organism is assigned a genus, or generic, name (always capitalized), which is shared with its close relatives, and a lowercase species, or specific, name.

Linnaeus, in his 1757 masterwork Systema Naturae, set down the classification and scientific names of the creatures known at that time, including the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura), bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), and the American kestrel (Falco sparverius).  The genus name Haliaeetus comes from the Greek word haliaetos, meaning sea-eagle, while the specific name leucocephalus is a combination of the Greek leukos (white) and kephale (head).  "White-headed sea-eagle" is a rather good description of a bald eagle.   

[glogdog]

One of my favorite books as you can tell is The Bald Eagle, Haunts and Habits of a Wilderness Monarch by Jon Gerrard and Gary Bortolotti.  I thank Elfruler for suggesting that book to me several years ago.  In the Preface of that book, coauthor Jon M. Gerrard, mentions making four trips to northern Saskatchewan that launched his career as an "eaglologist". lol  I like that.  In particular, Jon and Gary studied eagles on Besnard Lake.  Gary did his doctoral research from 1979 to 1982.  I wanted to share a few things with you from that book from Chapter 2 which is titled, "To Know An Eagle".  Each chapter starts off with a quote and this one is, "But you never were made as I, On the wings of the winds to fly! The Eagle said,"  Will Carleton.

Here's another part of this chapter that was written by Gary Bortolotti expressing his thoughts that still ring true for so many today:  "What is the bird, the Bald Eagle, that we have come so far to study?  The image of an eagle arouses as many different feelings as there are people; few birds have elicited such strongly opposing emotions as these predators.  Worldwide, eagles have been revered as symbols of majesty, grace, and power, inspiring poets and politicians alike.  Yet all species have suffered from senseless, often relentless persecution.  It was no doubt the sense of power and grandeur associated with the Bald Eagle that in 1782 inspired the people of the United States of America to adopt this bird as their national symbol.  It is certainly an impressive-looking bird.  Whether perched motionless on a dead branch above a river, its head glistening pearly white in the sun, or soaring gracefully in a light wind along a cliff, its wings spreading dark and wide in the breeze, this bird is truly awe-inspiring." 

[glogdog]

If you happen to live near or would like to make a trip to the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, MN this week they will be celebrating the Bald Eagles Road to Recovery on June 17-18.  This celebration commemorates the anniversary of the bald eagle's removal from the endangered species list in 2007.  Here's the link to the National Eagle Center showing events as well as an article about the delisting from the USFWS.

https://www.nationaleaglecenter.org/bald-eagle-day/

http://www.fws.gov/pacific/ecoservices/BaldEagleDelisting.htm

[Bob1603]

Here is an excellent article with 14 facts about bald eagles.  Many readers may already know them but it is nice to see them publicized. 

http://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/pets-animals/14-bold-facts-about-bald-eagles/ar-BBsASZV?li=BBnbcA0