Tag Archives: Development

Peek inside a bald eagle egg: 4 days!

An embryonic bird at 33 hours

As of this writing, the last Decorah egg is 22 hours old, the last Decorah North egg is 9 days, 23 hours old, and the last Fort St. Vrain egg is 12 days, 22 hours old. What do embyronic eagles look they look like as they develop and grow inside their eggs? Dr. Peter Sharpe from the Institute for Wildlife Studies developed a table of bald eagle embryonic development based on work done by Hamburger and Hamilton (1951). While not all

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Eaglet Growth and Development: Week Four

Three plumage stages are visible: natal down (head), thermal "down" (grey feathers), and juvenile plumage

We’re writing a series of blogs about the first few weeks of an eaglet’s life. An eaglet spends roughly 75 to 80 days in the nest. For about the first half, it grows and gains weight. For about the second half, it grows flight feathers and starts developing the skills it will need post-fledge. We will focus on week four in this blog. D32 and D33 are 26 and 23 days old. During week three (fourteen to twenty-one days), the

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Eaglet Growth and Development: Week Three

April 21, 2019: D32

We’re writing a series of blogs about the first few weeks of an eaglet’s life. An eaglet spends roughly 75 to 80 days in the nest. For about the first half, it grows and gains weight. For about the second half, it grows flight feathers and starts developing the skills it will need post-fledge. We will focus on week three in this blog. D32 and D33 are 16 and 13 days old. During week two (seven to fourteen days), the

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Eaglet Growth and Development, Week Two

April 11, 2019: Fish and more fish!

We’re writing a series of blogs about the first few weeks of an eaglet’s life. An eaglet spends roughly 75 to 80 days in the nest. For about the first half, it grows and gains weight. For about the second half, it grows flight feathers and starts developing the skills it will need post-fledge. We will focus on week two in this blog. In their second week of development, the eaglets will gain roughly two pounds between their 7th and

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Eaglet Growth and Development: Week One

Day four: Let the beak battling begin!

We’re writing a series of blogs about the first few weeks of an eaglet’s life. An eaglet spends roughly 75 to 80 days in the nest. For about the first half, it grows and gains weight. For about the second half, it grows flight feathers and starts developing the skills it will need post-fledge. We will focus on week one in this blog. What can we expect in the first week following hatching? Like humans and other animals, growing nestlings

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