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Bald Eagles are known for their strength. The eagle represents freedom. They became a National emblem in 1782. The eagle appears on a lot of our State seals and on most of our gold and silver coins. It's a symbol of patriotism. Did you know that the Bald Eagle is a very strong swimmer? They have an out-pouching of the esophagus called a crop where they can store food. Compared to the other eagles the bald eagle seems to be more clumsy catching it's prey.
Bald Eagles are mostly found in North America. If you look in the sky you might see them soaring across. The bald eagles have a home range of 1,200 to 10,000 acres. The bald eagle is the National bird of the United States; it lives in North America, Alaska, and Florida.
Bald Eagles are fish eaters; but they eat shorebirds too. They have no problem getting fish because they are very strong swimmers. In Alaska they have been seen standing in streams using their beaks to capture migrating salmon.Besides fish which is a main part of their diet they also eat carrion, waterfowl, rabbits, squirrels, mice, and snakes;but it can't ever beat their love of fish.
Bald Eagles were shot as pests or threats to livestock. Their habitat seemed to disappear as well as the food they ate. DDT was commonly used by American farmers . Indiscriminate spraying of DDT used to kill bugs created a lot of extra chemicals. These chemicals washed into lakes and rivers and the fish were poisoned by them. Eagles eat a lot of fish ,and the poison collected in their bodies too. The DDT made the eagles' eggshells very thin. The egg shells would crack when the mother eagle sat on the eggs to keep them warm, and the chicks growing inside of them would die.
Don't use chemicals which might affect any animal. Participate in Wildlife activities such as bird watching, whale watching, nature photography, and scuba diving. Join or support organizations which help protect endangered species. For example, help support the World Life Fund. DDT was banned in the United States in 1972, and bald eagles were given their own natural environment to live in . It is also illegal to hunt bald eagles.
The female bald eagle reaches to thirty-five to thirty-seven inches and has a wing span of seventy-nine to ninety inches. The male can be between thirty and thirty-seven inches tall with a wing span of seventy-two to eighty-five inches. The bald eagle weighs from ten to fourteen pounds. The bald eagle has snow white feathers covering its head and neck. The tail feathers of the older bald eagle are also white. The bald eagle's body color is dark brown. The eagle has a yellow beak, feet, and eyes. The young eaglet doesn't look like this until it reaches the age the of five or six years old.The male and the female look alike, except that the female is a little bigger in wing span and weight. The bald eagle's voice is described as high-pitched and squeaky.
Click here to link to a bald eagle puzzle
Here is a really cool site about bald eagles www.marcoisland.org/bioeagl.htm
Here is another really cool web site http://ngp.ngpc.state.ne.us/wildlife/eagles.html
Here is one more neat web site about bald eagles http://www.baldeagleinfo.com
