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A first feeding for DN17. This is the eagle equivalent of ‘baby food’: tiny and completely digestible.
What’s on the menu at the North nest? We crunched the numbers to learn what Mr. North, DNF, and the eaglets were eating: breakfish, second breakfish, eightses, luncheon, afternoon raccoon, cowghetti dinner, and breakfish for supper! Read on to learn more!
Overall Prey Deliveries
Mr. North and DNF delivered 579 meals to the nest. He brought in 42% of all meals and a slight majority of the fish (51%), while she brought in 58% of all meals and a majority of the mammals (74%). It breakfishes down like this…
| Total Meals |
579 |
100% |
| Fish |
396 |
68% |
| Mammals |
75 |
13% |
| Unknown (UFO) |
98 |
17% |
| Birds |
15 |
2% |
| Reptiles |
0 |
None |
While fish was the preferred meal in every month, taxa shifted ever so slightly from month to month and the percentage of fish brought into the nest increased quite a bit when suckers were spawning.
- In March, fish made up 65% of meal deliveries
- In April, fish made up 84% of meal deliveries
- In May, fish made up 78% of meal deliveries
- In June, fish made up 44% of meal deliveries
- In July, fish made up just 8% of meal deliveries
- Between April 11 and May 11, fish made up an incredible 87% of all meal deliveries. I don’t have species detail, but this period coincides with the sucker spawn, which means that suckers are abundant and really, really easy to catch! Brown and brook trout aren’t spring spawners, but they might become more active as suckers migrate in and make more food available to everything around them.
- Our data shows a stark fish delivery difference starting on April 11. Between November 2, 2023 and April 10, 2024, DNF and Mr. North delivered an average of .89 fish per day. Between April 11 and July 10, they delivered an average of 3.5 fish per day. At least one fish was delivered every day between April 8 and June 3. Talk about flying fishwagons!
Menu Details
| Fish |
396 |
| UFO |
98 |
| Fawn Deer |
19 |
| Squirrel |
14 |
| Raccoon |
14 |
| Rabbit |
11 |
| Placenta/Cowghetti |
7 |
| Muskrat |
5 |
| Duck |
5 |
| Pheasant |
4 |
| Fetal Ungulate |
4 |
| Hawklet |
3 |
| One Each |
Skunk, Coot, deer testicles, deer tail, unknown liver |
|
|
Feeding and Eating
Who fed the kids more, DNF or Mr. North? Unsurprisingly, DNF fed 338 times to Mr. North’s 241 times. While the two evened out a little bit as the eaglets grew, DNF did 75% of the feedings and 60% of the meal deliveries during the eaglets’ first five days of life. This is unusual behavior for them, especially given that Mr. North’s prey delivery dropped precipitously once brooding started. We know that incubation prey delivery records and Mr. North’s general behavior and appearance don’t indicate incapacitation, but we’re not sure what was happening. Did the uncommonly warm weather change their behavior or something about their environment? We’ll take a deeper dive into our video record and see what we can find.
When did self-feeding take over? Both eaglets started self-feeding on May 6. Parental feedings diminished pretty rapidly, perhaps because the ever-hungry tree-riffic two were a risk to parental toes, tails, and wings! June 8 marked the first day that neither parent fed, although they faithfully continued to deliver meals to their loudly squeeing offspring. Good luck, DN17 and DN18! You learned how to feed yourselves and did a very good job of it! We hope you continue to crush the dinner line as you graduate to Eagle College!
2024 feedings and self feedings
Further exploration…
Why does learning always lead to more questions? Several people have commented about the numbers of eagles nesting in NE Iowa. NE Iowa has been working hard to clear up its streams and rivers and build its fish populations: a magnet for nesting eagles that favor fresh fish! I want to explore riverine biology a little further. Where are sucker fish migrating from? How are they impacting riverine systems? What other animals are relying on them. This article from Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium is extremely interesting. Link: https://www.sheddaquarium.org/stories/researching-a-great-lakes-migration-the-sucker-spawning-run.
What was going on with the North’s this year? We’ve never seen DNF deliver more food in the first two weeks of brooding, although incubation deliveries and feeding in general looked pretty normal. Did the warm weather change something about the eagles’ behavior or environment? Perhaps 2025’s late winter will be colder and snowier, giving us a chance to compare. I also wonder how much of the ‘cowghetti’ is really deerghetti: the eagles regularly feast on fawn parts and placenta deliveries span March 15 through May 17 and are somewhat concurrent with deer parts and fetal ungulates being delivered to the nest. As always, thank you for watching, sharing, learning, and especially for caring – and a special thanks to our camera operators and moderators for compiling and sharing data. This report would not exist without them.
The Raptor Resource Project