Journey North Bald Eagle Spring 2003

Bald Eagle

Bald Eagle Migration Update: May 7, 2003

Today's Report Includes:

Field Notes from Peter Nye
Eagles Online: How Does an Eaglet Spend the Day?
What Do You See? What Does the Ornithologist See?
Eagles Are Big Babies: Challenge Question #20 and #21
Challenge Question #17: When Will Eggs Hatch in Canada?
Discussion of Challenge Question #18: What Does the Blue Leg-band Mean?
My Activity Budget: Discussion of Challenge Question #19
Try This! Sleep Cycles Seen from Space
Year-End Evaluation: Please Share Your Thoughts!

Field Notes from Peter Nye
No field notes from Peter Nye today! He is now out in the field banding eaglets, and eagle migration is drawing to a close.

Link to Latest Data:

Since nesting activity is underway in Bald Eagle habitat everywhere, we’ll visit the online bald eagle nest this week’s update and next.

Eagles Online: How Does an Eaglet Spend the Day?
The eaglet in the online nest is now almost 3 weeks old. These three photos were taken during the last week. What questions come to mind as you observe the eaglet?

Photos Courtesy of Eagles Online

15 days old	18 days old 8:25 am	18 days old 8:30 am

What Do You See? What Does the Ornithologist See?
Record your own observations, then read Journey North's Laura Erickson thoughts after viewing the same pictures:

Nestcam Notes
Feeding Time	Home Alone?	A Bad Egg	Nest Sanitation

Eagles Are Big Babies
Challenge Questions #20 and #21

Eagles remain in the nest for 10-12 weeks before they fledge. And they are not good at catching fish when they first leave the nest. They pick up dead fish along shorelines first, and then progress to picking up dead fish floating in rivers and lakes. It may take months for an eagle to start catching its own live fish, and much longer for it to become reliable at fishing. This means that young birds must spend more time fishing to catch the same number of fish as adults. All in all, the first years of a Bald Eagle's life are a time of enormous learning and exploring the world around them.

Challenge Question #20
“A robin fledges when only 13 days old, and a hummingbird at 21 days. This compares to 10-12 weeks for an eagle. How many days old is an eagle when it fledges?”

Challenge Question #21
“Why do you suppose young eagles take so long to grow up compared to hummingbirds and robins?”

(To respond to these questions, please follow the instructions below.)

Discussion of Challenge Question #17
When Will Eggs Hatch in Canada?
Bald Eagles are nesting across the continent, and the steps in each nest are the same. Using dates from the Nestcam in Massachusetts, we asked you to predict when Nye’s more northern eagles would hatch their first young.

Katie, in Grade 4 at Highview Elementary School in Nanuet, New York said, “I predict that Eagle E47's first egg will hatch on June 1, 2003. Eagle E49's first egg will hatch on May 11, 2003.”

Great job! Our numbers were very close. Here’s our math:

E47	Date	# Days
Arrived at nest	April 4
Laid first egg	April 28	(Assuming 14 days after arrived at nest)
First egg hatches	June 2	35 days after laid

E49	Date	# Days
Arrived at nest	March 29
Laid first egg	April 12	(Assuming 14 days after arrived at nest)
First egg hatches	May 17	35 days after laid

Discussion of Challenge Question #18
What Does the Blue Leg-band Mean?

In reading about the Eagles Online nesting pair, one piece of information was of special interest: The male eagle has a silver band on one leg and a blue band on the other. We asked, "What does the blue leg-band on the male Bald Eagle in Massachusetts tell you?"

After some careful reading, Matthew, who’s in Grade 4 at Highview Elementary School in Nanuet, New York got it right: “The blue band is the wild nest in New York state around 1990.”

Great job, Matthew! And the significance of the blue leg band is that our own Peter Nye banded this bird when it was a baby! Just as he is banding eaglets in all New York nests now, he did so back in 1990 when this father eagle was a baby himself. How old is the father eagle now?

My Activity Budget
Discussion of Challenge Question #19
Iselin Middle School students were busy calculating their activities. They broke into groups and found that they sleep more than anything else. Here are responses from each group:

Sleeping 10 hours means we sleep 41.7% of the time.
Our group sleeps 8 hours or 33.3% of the day.
Some of us sleep 6, 7, and 9 hours a day or 25.0%, 29.2% and 37.5% respectively.

"We all agree we sleep to rest and regain the energy and strength we used during the day,” they concluded.

Try This! Sleep Cycles Seen from Space
People and animals all over the world have sleep cycles in common. This photo of the world is darkened where it is night. Where in the world are people sleeping? What animals are sleeping at the same time? Which animals roam the earth while you sleep? Do some research into biomes of the world and find out!

Journey North
Year End Evaluation
Please share your thoughts

How to Respond to Today's Challenge Questions:

IMPORTANT: Answer only ONE question in each e-mail message.

1. Address an e-mail message to: jn-challenge-eagle@learner.org
2. In the Subject Line of your message write: Challenge Question #20 (or #21).
3. In the body of EACH message, answer ONE of the questions above.

The FINAL Bald Eagle Migration Update Will Be Posted on May 14, 2003