The Bald Eagle: A Spectacular Success Story
The Great Outdoors | November 1, 2022
By Jackie Scharfenberg, Forest Naturalist, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
This past summer, I had the honor of interviewing the famous bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus). Following are excerpts from that interview.
Wow, what an honor to meet the national symbol of the United States since 1782.
Well, we are the largest fish eagle in the United States! What other bird can match our distinguished good looks? We have a chocolate brown body with a remarkable white head and tail highlighted with bright yellow feet, bill, and eyes. It takes four to five years before we sport this magnificent plumage. Juveniles start out with a brown body and mottled brown and white wings and tail.
To top that off, we stand almost three feet tall with a wingspan between six and half to eight feet. Our females outsize our males by 25 percent…pretty impressive, right?
We got our name from the old English word “balde” which means white.
Where do you nest?
We pick a sturdy tree that rises above the forest canopy and is located near water. We build our nest of sticks lined with finer materials near the trunk just below the crown of the tree. Only the trees with the best views will do. We hold the honor of building the largest nests of any bird in North America.
On average they measure five to six feet across and two to four feet deep. It can take us three months to build our tree-top mansions and some of us reuse the same nest for years; adding new materials each year. One nest in Ohio weighed more than two tons and was used for 34 years until the tree blew down.
I heard bald eagles were once listed on the Endangered Species List, but now your numbers top 316,000 in the lower 48 states and pairs breed in all 72 Wisconsin counties. What happened?
Back in the day, top predators like myself were hunted, trapped, and poisoned because people thought we took too many fish, livestock, and other prey. In addition to that, the pesticide DDT caused our eggs to become so thin we couldn’t sit on them without cracking them. With the ban on DDT and the protection of the Endangered Species Act, our numbers began to soar to the point that we were removed from the Endangered Species List in 2007. Our population continues to expand into historic ranges throughout much of North America; from Alaska to northern Mexico.
How do you keep so fit and good looking?
We eat a lot of fish and we supplement our diet with small mammals and birds. We also eat reptiles like turtles, amphibians, invertebrates like crabs, and even carrion. Variety is the spice of life! We can spy prey up to a mile away and make power dives over 100 mph to capture it!
To keep in shape, we use our large board wings to soar, glide, flap over long distances and take advantage of those rising thermals.
Any final words?
Watch the skies, especially near water, and you may just spy one of us regal bald eagles soaring overhead.
