We have some treats and Mother Nature has some tricks on this very chilly night before Halloween! At Decorah North, look for stick harvesting and nestorations (I especially enjoyed the second video). On the Flyway, we’ve got beautiful subadult close-ups and an important lesson concerning eagle table manners from the professors at Eagle College. Trick or treat? Eagles do both! Thanks to our camera operators and video makers for finding and preserving such special moments, and to all of you for watching, sharing, learning, and especially for caring!
Decorah North Eagles
October 30, 2023: Mr. North (left) and DNF (right) hard at work on the North nest.
October 28, 2023: Winter is Coming! https://youtu.be/ee-QNA5ewS4?si=zmAcznKMVW2rd3Ff. Snowflakes are falling, the temperature is dropping, birds are hammering my feeder, and Mr. North and DNF are busy with nestorations. They will spend months getting their nest just right: piling sticks around the edges, layering the nest bowl’s floor with grass and corn husks, digging and scraping in the nest to prepare the foundation for the egg cup, and eventually piling up grasses to build a nursery/incubator of sorts for their eggs.
While birds can’t predict long-range weather patterns, they have at least two ways to detect and prepare for incoming storms. More here: https://www.raptorresource.org/2022/12/21/can-birds-detect-severe-weather-storms-cold-and-bald-eagles-in-winter/.
October 30, 2023: The season’s first snow on the North nest. Like Mr. North and DNF, but unlike Sandhill Cranes, we’ll stay the winter.
October 28, 2023: DNF harvests a stick; stick wars and nestorations – https://youtu.be/A-PTauXiMIY?si=fQ4pb-z6oyRdj6Zb. the video opens with DNF harvesting a large, curved stick. She flies into the nest with her prize at :27 and the stick wars begin! There is some marvelous footage in here, but I especially enjoyed the stick mamushka that starts at 1:38, the wishbone action at 1:42 (it isn’t Thanksgiving yet!), the steal from behind at 1:58 (Mr. North could not help himself!), and the nice views of the nest throughout. As videomaker GA Bear puts it, the rails keep rising and the nest bowl gets smaller!
October 28, 2023: A fall moo-rade at Decorah North!
Mississippi Flyway
October 25, 2023: Beautiful SA Closeups – https://youtu.be/Hza3GD2huQI?si=1tKNGW7be7UUKH3a. Exactly as the title says: a beautiful close-up look at a beautiful subadult eagle!
October 26, 2023: A subadult eagle on the Flyway.
How old is this eagle? The In-hand Guide to Diurnal North American Raptors defines three plumage classes that contain five groups: Juvenile or hatch-year/second-year (HY/SY) plumage; sub-adult plumage (SY/TY, TY/4Y, 4Y/5Y); and adult plumage (A5Y). But eagles come in a wide variety of plumage patterns and plumages can overlap, making it difficult to age an eagle when you can’t take a look at molt retention. Birds from southern populations can acquire adult plumage a year or two before northern birds and even northern birds show some variation in gaining fully white heads. Having said that, the ‘osprey eye’ pattern most commonly turns up in eagles during their third year, which means that this eagle is probably a little over three years old.
October 30, 2023: Sandhill cranes on migration breaking our hearts with their beauty and vocalizations. Goodbye. Good luck!
October 25, 2023: A Bald Eagle Thief! https://youtu.be/JEt1fWpc3j0?si=1d6PnCEGSg6Tq8fx. Diction-Aerie Word Of The Day: Kleptoparasitism [klep·topar·a·sitism]: A form of parasitism wherein an animal takes food or objects collected, caught, prepared, or stored by another animal.
We don’t think of bald eagles as social birds, but many eagles gather in large communal groups during the winter. This lets them find more food with less work than hunting alone, since when one eagle finds food, every eagle finds food! They also steal prey from other eagles, which can be more energy efficient than catching it themselves. Why go fishing when someone else can do it for you?
Of course, intraspecific kleptoparasitism doesn’t always work out in any individual eagle’s favor, especially if it is smaller or less experienced than the thief! In this video, a juvenile eagle has caught or stolen a coot. Unfortunately, an adult eagle steals it before the youngster can gobble it down. Remember, Eagle College professors are notoriously unforgiving when it comes to table manners!
The Raptor Resource Project