We have so many postcards this week! D27, D35, and D36 all phoned home – although the last two were just around the corner most of the time. To date, D36 has the longest flight record, at .365 miles from his natal nest. If you’ve trekked or biked Trout Run Trail past the hatchery, you’ve gone past the farm he visited. Both eagles are also spending a lot of time just upstream of the nest and just out of our view. Click on the image below to see their full maps.
How do they compare with the other eaglets we’ve tracked? So far, their travels, such as they are, appear very similar to those of D1, D14, Four, D24, D25, and D27. The eaglets slowly expand their wanderings in July as they learn how to fly and navigate, with longer trips usually beginning at the end of July. By mid-August, the eaglets are putting some miles beneath their wings. Dispersal is most likely to occur in the first week of September, although their have been two exceptions. Eaglet D1 dispersed in mid-August of 2011 with almost no warning whatsoever, and eaglet four didn’t disperse until mid-October. We were starting to wonder if she would ever leave!
What is D27 doing? She is continuing to spend time on Lake Petownikip in Ontario’s boreal caribou forest, although she has shifted from island hopping to the lake’s eastern shore.
July 22, 2020: D27
She has 16 hours of daylight to fish, hunt, and fly, and won’t experience true night unless she shifts substantially southward or sticks around until July 28. Her darkest sky might look something like this:
We wish all of our eagles safe travels, fair winds, and blue skies! A thousand thousand thanks to Brett Mandernack and the staff of Eagle Valley for sharing their maps, expertise, and knowledge!
To follow the travels of all the eagles we’ve tracked, visit our interactive maps at https://www.raptorresource.org/learning-tools/eagle-map/.
The Raptor Resource Project