Hot and Stormy – it’s hard on eagles too!

Now that the young eagles have fledged, or left the nest, they have a lot to learn. They’re still staying close to the nest, but no longer using the nest itself. Rather, they spend their time on the branches or trees nearby. They need to stay close to home while they work on the flying skills. Just because you have a seven foot wingspan, doesn’t mean you can fly! They need to gain critical flight skills, and build up some muscles these first weeks out of the nest. They also need to learn how to hunt and fish for themselves. For the first three months of life, while they’re in the nest, Mom and Dad had been providing all their food. Now that they are out of the nest, they are expected to provide for themselves. Of course, Mom and Dad want them to succeed, so they will offer some tips – where to look for food and how to catch and kill they prey. And, if the youngsters come up empty, Mom and Dad are still willing to help out for a while. (Another good reason, not to go too far from home!) In general, these youngsters are spending a lot more energy than an older, more skilled eagle flying and finding food. These hot and stormy days and nights can be hard on these already vulnerable birds. Even adult eagles are stressed by the heat. It’s much easier for eagles – who have their own built-in down coats – to withstand cold temperatures, than steamy heat. It’s hard on anybody, and eagles are no exception. In hot weather, eagles tend to eat less – they don’t need the calories to keep warm. But, young eagles still need those calories to build up their muscle mass for flying. They can afford to miss too many meals. Rough weather takes its toll on lots of animals. Think about spending the night perched in a tree during a hail storm? It’s rough out there. These first few weeks out of th4e nest can be a real challenge for young eagles, and one of the reasons that about 50% of young eagles don’t make it through their first year.

NationalEagleCenter.org

Wabasha, MN

651-565-4989

nationaleaglecenter@gmail.com

STAY OUT and GOOD RIDENCE!!!

Eagles are a very territorial bird.  These birds will fight to the death to defend the nest, food source, and territory surrounding the nest.  But these birds are also very good parents and most will allow the young to stay in the territory for some time after they have learned to fly.  During this time the parents are teaching the young how to find food and defend themselves.   They will generally stay in the parents territory until late summer or really early fall.  But I say it depends how much grief the kids gave the parents when they were in the nest! 
Once the young have left for good they have to start a life of their own.  They will hang around other immature birds and continue to learn from each other, always picking up new techniques for hunting.  A big part of the mortality rate for these birds the first year of life is going to be the inexperience of not knowing what to do in situations and where to find food that first winter.  About 50% of the young hatched this year will not make it to the next summer. 
If these birds do make it to the next spring and they decided to come back home, they will not   be welcomed back by the parents.  The parents will actually run them right out of their territory.  Raising a new set of chicks is work enough for the parents, they don’t need to worry about taking care of the ones that already can fly and find food.  So until the immature eagles have turned to the adult age of five or six they will just be wandering around just exploring and checking out where the best place to live is.  I like to compare them to college students; they are just getting the reins and will be looking to hopefully settle down in a few years.

Bridget Befort

Program Specialist

National Eagle Center

The Dentist meets the Pedicurist

     We have been talking a lot lately about the growth of eaglets while they are still in the nest, soon most of that growth will dissipate, but there are two things that will continue to grow their entire lives, their beak and their talons.    
     An eagle’s beak and talons are made out the same thing that our finger nails are made out of, Keratin.  Keratin is a tough, fibrous protein that is the main structural components of hair, nails horns, feathers, and hooves.  Individual keratin molecules are entwined helically around each other, (like DNA), in long filaments.  I don’t expect everyone to totally understand what this means, (I’m not even sure If I do!) but just know that the twisting and cross-linking of these filaments to each other is what produces the toughness and strength.
      In the wild the continuous use of the eagles’ talons by catching their prey and landing on other surfaces such as rocks and tree branches, will naturally break and wear down their talons.  Eagles also exhibit a behavior called “feaking,” which is where they rub their beaks on the side of a rock or a branch.  Not only does this act help clean off the blood from their meal, but it also wears down the sides of their beaks so it does not over grow. 
      However, for our eagles at the National Eagle Center (NEC), we have to help them out with this.  Our birds are not able to catch different things and land on different surfaces, the perches that we have are made out of soft rope and Astroturf, which is good for the overall health of their feet, but does not do much for their talons.  Since our birds have these soft perches, and a very high protein diet, compared to birds in the wild, their beaks and talons tend to overgrow.  In order to keep our birds nice and healthy we have to do a couple of things to help them out. 
      In order to keep our bird’s beaks from over growing, we have to “cope” their beaks.  In other words we take a Dremel cutting tool and literally grind down the sides of their beaks.  As you can imagine, this is a lot like going to the dentist, so the birds hate having this done to them.  At the NEC we want to be the “good guys” so when it comes time for them to get their beaks coped we send them to the Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota, and they do it for us, and they get to be the “bad guys”.  
      As for their talons we use the same technique and grind them to the right shape, but again the birds do not like this.  What we have been doing lately instead is having our birds stand in a tub of water for a long period of time.  This is the same principle as cutting your fingernails after you get out of the shower; they are a lot softer and easier to cut.  It is not as easy as you think to make our birds stand in water, don’t get me wrong, our eagles love the water, but for them they have to be in the water for a long time.  After their extended manicure in the water, we can literally take our fingers and scrape of the excess growth.

Joe Krumrie
Education Specialist
National Eagle Center

Shocking News Out West!

What a thrill it has been for us to be able to watch a bald eagle cam.  We here in the Upper Midwest often do not realize how lucky we are to have bald eagles nesting fairly close to us. There are many parts of the country where bald eagles are not as common. Most of us probably know where we can go in our area to see an eagles nest, and as long as we stay back a ways so as not to disturb the eagles we do have that opportunity to do so. However, being able to watch the cam at home or work allows us to peek in safely round the clock.
Working here at the National Eagle Center in Wabasha I routinely here from visitors how glad they are to be able to see a bald eagle in the wild just outside our large picture windows.  For many people they just do not have the opportunity to see bald eagles in many parts of the country.  Therefore, I should recognize that as I hear that frequently enough, but I did not until I took a recent trip to Western Colorado and South East Utah for ten days. 

 I was in drop dead gorgeous country, some of the most beautiful in this country in my opinion, and I went from the mountains to the desert and traveled to and from there by AMTRAK, which travels along the Colorado River for more than 260 miles and on the entire trip, I saw only one bald eagle!  I am a naturalist, bird watcher and I work at the National Eagle Center so I was definitely looking for bald eagles.  This made me realize how I really need to cherish those views of bald eagles that I get every day and really listen as the visitor tells me how special it is to see an eagle.  It also made me think about a time between 1968 and 1972 when a 260-mile stretch of the Mississippi River between Wabasha MN and Rock Island Illinois had just 1 nesting pair of bald eagles left, and the entire lower forty eight states had just 417 nesting pairs of bald eagles left.  Imagine how difficult it was to see an eagle then in most areas of the country.  Now that same 260-mile stretch of river that we know as the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge has over 260 nesting pairs of eagles and the lower forty-eight states now have over 10,000 nesting pairs, with over 2,300 nesting pairs in Minnesota.  So thankfully we have that chance to see eagles so commonly in our area, but there are some parts of the country where it more difficult to see eagles, so these web cams allow all of us no matter where we live to peer into their lives and learn a little at the same time.
I mentioned that I only saw one bald eagle on my trip; I should also mention that I did see several golden eagles, which for me was awesome, as golden eagles really trip my trigger.  Do not get me wrong, I still think bald eagles are cool; it is just that I think golden eagles are “slightly more cool”!  I should say that I saw more golden eagles because I was in better habitat for them, not a lot of water in the desert and the water in the mountains were moving way to fast to effectively catch fish if you are a bald eagle.

 I was very intrigued by the power poles that I saw northeast of Moab Utah.  These poles had a bracket that extended above where the pole normally would end and on top of that bracket was a plank of wood or literally a perch, a spot for raptors like a golden eagle to perch on.  Years ago many raptors, especially eagles were killed when they landed on power poles and both wings touched two different power lines and the eagles were then electrocuted.  Thankfully, many raptor groups have worked with power companies to change the spacing of the wires and to have perches like this for the raptors. Many power companies were more than willing to do so, because when that eagle was electrocuted it also many times also caused an outage for thousands of power company customers.  When I saw these perches on the poles near that prairie dog town, I had to stop and think how cool it was that these were placed out there for the raptors.  It was not that long ago in our past when any bird of prey was thought of a vermin, or a bad guy and should be shot on sight.  Yes, we still have work to do, like convincing even more people about the role of predators in the environment, but we have come a long ways.

Scott Mehus
Education Director

The next big step is a long way down!

As the baby eaglets develop into fledglings, they are growing at an extremely fast rate.  At 12 to 13 weeks they are the same size as their parents and are really going after the food.  As it was already discussed, the growth of the feathers is a major event that takes a lot of energy; the baby eagles can easily eat over two pounds of food a day!  Once the baby eaglets have most of their feathers grown in, they become what we like to call “Branchers.”  “Branching” is the act of the fledgling eagles jumping from branch to branch flapping their wings and exercising those muscles that are vital for flight.  During this “branching” season is the time when a lot of eaglets miss the branch that they were going for, those new big feet can sometimes get cumbersome, and fall to the ground.  “Branching”, even though it may be dangerous, is an important part of eagle development.  If an eaglet jumps out of the nest and tries to fly before it is ready, it can be a long way to the ground.   Generally eagles start flying at about 14 to 15 weeks, if the eaglets try and stay around the nest and keep getting fed by the parents; soon enough the parents will get sick of feeding them and force them out of the nest.

One particular example, I was called to a nest where one of the eaglets was on the ground, and the other one was in the nest.  As far as I can gather, this particular nest site somehow broke apart and some of it fell to the ground.  When I approached the nest, the male and female were flying around and screaming at me, and I seriously thought that I was going to have to avoid them dive bombing me.  After a few attempts, the parents finally decided to leave the area, and I was able to go about looking for the injured chick. 

When I got up to the tree, I looked up and I saw that there was a head poking out of the lower part of the nest!  Somehow this chick survived the fall from the upper part, and landed in the nest that got caught in the lower crotch of the tree. However for his nest mate, he was not so fortunate.

When I first saw the eaglet, he was sitting on the ground, when I walked over to him he flew up to a stump that was about four feet tall.  I thought to myself, there is nothing wrong with this eagle, if he can jump up to a stump that is 4 feet he definitely does not have a broken wing.   I wanted to make 100% sure that the eaglet was not hurt, so I approached him again and this time he let me get to within about three or so feet.  I was able at that distance to do a very good visual check.  I determined that this eagle was fully capable of flying and defending its self.  The parents will be able to continue to feed a chick that is on the ground.

Then the eagle decided to try and fly again, and this time he had a little air under his wings from being on that stump and he was able to fly about four or five feet off the ground for about 100 yards.  Then as if this bird did not already give me enough trouble, he decided to land in a small creek that was next to the nest.  So I put on my hip waders and decided I would get this chick and dry him off and put him back next to the nest.

Now the eagle was only in about four inches of water, but there was about three feet of mud underneath him!  He was not in to good of a spot for an ideal capture, but I trudged my way through the mud and got a hold of him.  But catching him in three feet of mud was not the hardest part, the hardest part was figuring out how I was going to get up a five foot tall embankment, while holding a struggling eaglet in my hands.  After I had waded downstream, and found a nice sand bar to lay out a blanket and get this eaglet dried off, I was able to take an even closer look at him, and I found that his feathers had not quite grown all the way yet and still had quite a bit of blood sheaths covering the feather. 

After I got the eaglet mostly dried off, I was able to set him in a tree next to the nest.  I suspected that the eaglet had about a week to a week and a half of growth left on his feathers and then he would be able to fly fully.  I did return about four weeks later and there was not sight of either eagle around.

Joe Krumrie
Education specialist