Albatrossity2
Posts: 2780
Joined: Mar. 2007
|
| Quote (EyeNoU @ Jan. 10 2009,11:26) | "This is a new site, but it might involve a pair we have already been tracking. Eagles have problems maintaining their very large nests. It is not unusual for tree branches to break under the strain when a major storm rolls through. Nests typically are replaced at 4 year intervals and many times this is due to tree failures.
We will log this nest location into our files and will keep track of this new nesting location"
I then e-mailed Brent asking about their diet. I mentioned that I thought I saw an eagle take off from a roadkseveral weeks earlier, but had only a brief glimpse since i was driving. His response:
"While the eagle is near the top of the food chain, it is not the most efficient predator. It generally needs to be easy. Food habit work has shown that catfish, softshell turtles and coots are some of the most abundant food items at nest sites. They will opportunistically kill waterfowl and when they get desperate/lazy they will work road kills." |
Cool!
Those nests can get pretty big. Several years ago I was privileged to accompany a USFWS crew who wanted to band the two baby bald eagles in a nest about 25 mi north of here. It was interesting.
The nest was in an old oak tree that had drowned during the 1993 flood season here. They used a large slingshot to shoot a line over the branch under it, and then hauled up a bigger line. A local tree surgeon used the line to climb the tree. He sat in the nest (!) and put the eaglets into a large cloth bag and lowered them to the crew on the ground, one at a time. After they were banded, weighed, and had theor blood drawn, they were hauled back up and put back into the nest. The parents sat in a nearby tree and twittered, but they never made any attempt to strafe or attack the guy sitting in the nest.
He reported that the bottom of the nest was littered with bones and shells of turtles... Must have been a good year for turtle-hunting, but that seems like a hard thing to feed a baby eagle.
Here's a pic of one of the little darlings. They had a boy and a girl; this was the girl.
If the nest is successful, maybe they'll let you tag along when they band the babies.
--------------
Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mind
Has been obligated from the beginning
To create an ordered universe
As the only possible proof of its own inheritance.
- Pattiann Rogers
|
in central Minnesota, one of the major prey for fox is skunk. Don't ask me how I know that. 
