From RRP's FB page:
Where are D27, D36, and our Golden Eagles? D27 and the two GOEA sent postcards from Canada and Nunavut while D36 is still staycationing in northern Iowa. Thanks for the airmail, eagles!
D27 is continuing her cool eagle summer up on the Hudson Plains. The area is filled with low-lying plains, rivers, and muskeg, but she appears to be exploring a large coniferous forest dotted with lakes...ideal territory for an eagle-cation! She is 827 miles north of her natal nest.
While D27 currently holds the title of 'Farthest North' among Bald Eagles from Decorah, both Golden Eagles have her beat by a longshot! GOEA 731, an adult female we captured north of La Crosse WI, sent us a postcard from a remote location 14mi NE of Darby Lake and 66mi SW of Kugaaruk, just south of the Hayes River. I couldn't get a weather forecast for her location, but nearby Kugaaruk is forecast to be cool and mostly sunny, with a high of 59F and a low of 41F. At 6200 feet in the air, 731 could see the frigid waters of the Arctic archipelago, glimpse a few of its 36,563 islands, or catch sight of large groups of sea mammals: a valuable source of food and carrion for Golden Eagles and other animals. At least two communities in the area are associated with marine mammals in the Inuktitut language. Arviligjuaq (Kugaaruk), translates to ‘place of many bowhead whales’, while Uqsuqtuuq (Gjoa Haven), translates to 'lots of fat', referring to the abundance of sea mammals in the nearby waters. GOEA 733, a subadult eagle captured in the same region, is just 83 miles WSW of 731. Both eagles are over 1500 miles north of their wintering grounds.
Some eagles like to travel, but others like to stay closer to home. D36 is continuing his Iowa staycation near Ten-Mile Creek, about 6 miles west of his natal nest. He is surrounded by a familiar patchwork of plowed fields, feedlots, small rivers, pockets of forest, and steep bluffs. It's considerably greener and warmer than it is 1500 or so miles north: today's high is forecast to be 84F.
Fly high and stay safe, eagles! We hope to see you all back here later this year.
As always, a thousand thanks to Brett Mandernack and Ryan Schmitz for giving us a glimpse into the amazing world of bald and golden eagles. To follow the travels of any of the eagles we've tracked, go to
https://www.raptorresource.org/learning-tools/eagle-map/. To learn more about our Golden Eagle tracking project, go to
https://www.raptorresource.org/learning-tools/golden-eagles/.
The eagles: Bald Eagle D36, a two-year old eagle from Decorah, is in NE Iowa. Bald Eagle D27, a five-year old eagle from Decorah, is in NW Ontario, up along the Ontario/Manitoba border. Golden Eagles 731 and 733, both captured north of La Crosse in Wisconsin's Driftless area, are up in the Southern Arctic Ecozone of Nunavut.
What D36 might see: a patchwork of fields, farm, and forest in NE Iowa.
What D27 might see. The Hudson Plains ecoregion contains full-sized trees, plenty of conifers, and abundant lakes and rivers. Photo courtesy Water Canada:
https://www.watercanada.net/boreal-summit-takes-place-in.../
What 731 and 733 might see. No full sized trees are found north of the Southern Arctic tree line. Low temperatures, low precipitation, and high winds encourage low plants like dwarf birch, heath, lichen, northern labrador tree, cranberry, bearberry, and short spruces, tamaracks, and willows. Photo by Horst Edig.
