• Tuesday-What'sUP December 21 - 09:49 pm

If you browse through the Guest Gallery Albums looking for a picture of an eagle, you'll find that Stanley Spruce is an avid fan of these beautiful birds. I can only imagine how excited he was when he spotted these two together on Keweenaw Bay. It's a wonder he was able to hold the camera still to get a shot at all!

I bet he was excited when he spotted the eagles! Nice shot! Wonder if eagles are like ducks and geese; do they also mate for life?

GREAT PIC!

NEVER FEAR, WHEN THE EAGLE'S IN THE AIR!

Joanie, bald eagles mate for life, but if one dies, the other will seek out a new partner.

We had several beautiful eagles at our place in Bootjack. They would do a "fly by" daily. We called them the "F-15's" as my husband is retired Air Force and the F-15 is one of the best fighters we have in the force. Beautiful animals!!!!!!!

Thanks Bec!

Beautiful birds! Just out of curiousity, are these a male and female? Is there an easy way to tell the difference between a male and female eagle just by looking at them (like the cardinal has obvious different colors)? If these two are, it would appear the one on the right would be female (smaller and more "feminine" looking). Which raises another question... how typical would it be to see two males or two females grouped together like this?

Morning all, So happy to see my favorite bird too. Anyone interested you can go to...
{http://www.friendsofblackwater.org/camhtm2.html
and see them returning to their nest for another great season,
MAGNIFICIANT!!!!!!

Joann, I think the female of the species is larger and plumper and usually has a bigger beak.

Fantastic photo album Stan!! Your pics of the eagles are great.

Super birds!

Thanks, Joanie. Then if that's the case, it would appear that the eagle on the left would be the female if these are a male and a female. Interesting!

Mary Drew:
What is your morning like? Early on you scan various pictures to find something that suits your fancy? Good job. I often put those pictures on my screen for a day or two.

Mary says: Thanks for asking Tom and for the kind words! Actually my morning is quite calm and serene, since I find something that suits my fancy (and what I think will suit the fancy of all you viewers!!) and write the notes to accompany the pictures a few days ahead. Then Dean Woodbeck actually does the posting of them to the Website the morning they appear! Real teamwork here at Pasty Central!!

The females are larger than males ranging 34" to 43" in size with a wing span of 7' to 7 1/2'. The males are 33" to 35" wing span of 6 1/2' to 7'.

More eagle trivia: Do you know why they're called bald eagles? It comes from the old English word, balde, meaning white.

Hi
In many birds of prey, the male is smaller, sometimes only a third of the size. The term for a male hawk, tiercel, relates to that.

More about the Bald Eagle:

Usually they live near the sea. They only live in trees 75 feet or higher. Bald Eagles add to their nest over and over. Sometimes it can take a pair of eagles as long as six weeks to build their nest for the first time. The eyrie is the large nest made of sticks and lined with twigs and green grass. The heaviest nest ever found is 1 ton. (That's 2000 pounds!)


Bald Eagles normally eat fish. Sometimes they will eat snakes and smaller birds. They have long sharp beaks and curved talons to help hold prey. They can fly with 8 pounds of food. Bald Eagles help man by catching rodents and rabbits that destroy grain fields.

Eagles have great eyesight that helps them see for one to one and a half miles away. (Thus the term eagles eye) They can dive at 100 miles per hour. Their eyesight and diving ability help them catch food.

I'm thinking about building an eagle feeder in the back yard!

Paul, I've heard of someone that butchers various road kills into edible sized pieces for the eagles and other birds in Keweenaw county. I've offered them fish carcasses after they've been filleted though they draw crows and seagulls but if there is an eagle in the area the others leave, the gulls to sit on the water and the crows for trees nearby..

Eagles usually build from 1-3 nests in their territories which are about a half mile in size. They lay from one to 4 eggs in about mid March.They repair and use one nest each year.
They can be seen hanging around or hunting from the others. Lots of times there is snow around the edges. The male and female take turns incubating the eggs. It is rare to see 3 survive. It is more like one or two.
We have about 180 nesting territories in West U.P. The oldest I know of is on the Escanaba river. The bird is 26 years old. It was banded so that is how it is known. Some people nail beaver carcasses to a stump and sit in a blind all day reading leg bands with spotting scopes. They turn info in to research. I fly part of the eagle survey for the DNR each spring.

Neil, that was very interesting. I bet you look forward to the eagle survey each spring. Do you give the birds names?

Neil--You have the most interesting job. Sure sounds like loads more fun than sitting in my cell, er, cubicle.

Notroll...there is a hog farmer that lives in the county next to me here in Eastern Iowa, he throws out dead adult and baby pigs into his manure spreader and spread out into his fields. One sees a lot of dinner guests such as, Eagles, Bald and Golden, many Hawk species, Buzzards, Falcons. If you can over look what they are eating, it really is a sight!

Last Saturday the Delta Co. Audubon Society had its annual
Christmas-time Bird Count. We are new up here, but we were
allowed tobe part of one of the teams going out to check for
birds in one of the areas part of the Delta survey. By "we" I mean
my wife and me. Going into a noontime gathering of all the
teams in a Gladstone pub, we felt pretty good about seeing 2
eagles. However, another team had seen 14! Holy Smokes! I
am still stunned at someone seeing that many! I guess eagles
are back, don't you think?

And to think Ben Franklin wanted the turkey as our national symbol.

http://www.smrr.net/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?b-journals/m-1164934725/

This is the site for raptor counting as the large birds migrate from Canada over the Detroit river at Gibraltar..they counted 200 Bald Eagles this year along with 225 American Eagles.