How Do Bald Eagles Work?

to represent the United States in seventeen eighty nine. For the article this episode is based on How Stuffworks, spoke with Scott Cordon, wildlife curator at the Center for Wildlife Education and the lamar Q Bald Junior Raptor Center at Georgia Southern University. Cordon is an expert falconer and manages the center's najerie, which includes two bald eagles. First off, to be clear, these eagles don't have the bald moniker because their heads look hairless, but rather because they're white.

Their name comes from the Middle English word bald b alde, meaning white, but bald eagles don't develop those striking white head and tail feathers until they're mature, somewhere between the ages of four and five years old. Immature Bald eagles are mostly dark brown in color, with mottled brown and white wings. They also don't fully develop the bright golden yellow coloration on their beaks and feet until they're mature. When they reach full size, bald eagles are big, with

the female eagles growing a bit larger than males. Overall, they can weigh around nine to fourteen pounds that's about four to six and a half kilos, with a wingspan of around five and a half to seven feet or about one point six two one point two meters. Only a few other North American birds, like the golden eagle

and the California condor, are as large or larger. Bald eagles are in the sea eagle family, meaning they live near rivers and coasts and hunt mostly fish and white fowl, but they're considered opportunistic carnivores, which means that they usually eat whatever is available, including other small game like rabbits, squirrels, or rodents, plus deadfish that have washed up on shore, or even stolen prey from other birds such as osprey's.

The scientific name for this type of food snatching behavior is klepto parasitism, but it's most common among the immature birds. Once mature, bald eagles can be formidable hunters. When a bald eagle swoops down to catch its prey, it uses its razor sharp talons to snatch the unlucky animal it's decided to make a meal out of. They'll roam a pretty wide hunting territory about twenty five miles across some

forty kilometers. But for all that, your average bald eagle can easily live off of a couple of adult rats per day. Corton said, most birds don't eat every day because they'll catch something that's large enough to sustain them for a couple of days. Instead, they might feed off of something large and fill their a part of their digestive system where they temporarily store food that can sustain

them for two or three days, sometimes even longer. A Bald eagles are the only sea eagles endemic to North America, and they really have the territory covered. The bald eagles range stretches from southern Alaska to northern Mexico and from coast to coast. Due to their distinctive plumage, they are almost impossible to mistake with other birds, even other large eagles. When you see that white head soaring above the trees, it's a bald eagle for sure. These birds can be

very social under the right circumstances. When food is plentiful and it's not nesting season, a few to a few hundred may roost together and have been observed engaging in play behavior even as adults. They also mat for life, though if one of a pair dies, the surviving birds sometimes finds a new mate and they take nesting seriously. Mates built nests called aries together, which takes around one

to three months. They also trade parental duties, with both birds incubating the eggs for the five weeks or so that it takes for them to hatch, because it takes the hatchlings ten to twelve weeks to grow to the point that they fledge, that is, take their first flight. Eagles only lay one clutch or a group of eggs per year. Cordon said. If their eggs or their young are destroyed early enough in the season, they will lay

another clutch to try to reproduce again. In fact, that's part of how they got the bald eagle population back up. They would remove eagle eggs from the nest early in the season and the adult eagle would lay another set of eggs. It's called a double clutch. Due to these efforts, the bald eagle was removed from the federal endangered species list in two thousand and seven and is off every state endangered species list too, though it's still protected by

several laws to prevent the population from dipping again. But back to those nests. A bald eagles have the largest nest of any bird species in North America. Their average nest size is up to five feet across and four feet deep that's about one point five by one point two meters. The biggest arion record was built by pair bald eagles in Saint Petersburg, Florida. It measured twenty feet by nine feet that's about six by three meters, and

weighed two tons. A Cordon explained eagles only live in their nest during the mating season, incubation, and while they're raising the fledglings. Once they learn to fly and everyone is out, they don't live in the nest. The birds will return to the same nest year after year if possible, but will leave if the tree's built in can't sustain it. They're also pretty smart. A Courton said, they tend to

never forget anything, and they hold grudges. If you're training an eagle and you make a mistake, that can either ruin the training you've done or set you back several months. But it's important to note that the bald eagle wasn't the only bird in the running for a national symbol. A founding father, Benjamin Franklin and favored the turkey as the national bird, calling it more respectable and with all a true original native of America. Part of Franklin's beef

was that the bald eagle is a scavenger. Corton said, of all the birds of prey other than the vultures, bald eagles will most readily go to a dead animal on the side of the road, where other birds of prey will only carry in if they're starving. Nevertheless, the bald eagle was chosen as a symbol of strength, courage, and freedom, and despite Franklin's comments, the bald eagle is

indigenous only to North America. Today's episode is based on the article Bald Eagle, size, diet and History is a National Icon on HowStuffWorks dot com, written by Patty Rasmusen Brain Stuff is production of by Heart Radio in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.