The eagle is a large, powerful bird of prey with broad wings. It also has a stout beak and sharp talons.
Males and females have the same colors in their feathers. The female is usually bigger. The young have a different plumage. Only after a few years the color of their feathers changes. There are many types of eagle.
These birds are carnivores. They eat mostly rodents, but also birds and lizards. Each species of eagle has its own delicacy. Their beak is made to tear off meat from prey. It also has strong legs and powerful claws to hold prey securely. They see very well. This is quite necessary to see prey walking on the ground from high in the sky. Eagles are sometimes found with us. Mostly in mountainous areas.
The eagle is often found on flags and shields. Probably because it is such a powerful and beautiful animal. Of all the animals, the eagle can fly the highest in the sky, which is why Native Americans see it as the animal that comes very close to God. Eagles are large birds with powerful hooked beaks; most hunt by plunging into their prey; some also feed on carrion.
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Types of eagles
There are 59 different eagles that eagles are divided into 4 groups. The Serpent Eagle and the Dwarf Eagle and the Bald Eagle and Harpy Eagles. There are 11 species of bald eagles. They live not only by the sea but also near lakes and rivers. The bald eagles eat fish and waterfowl. There are 6 species of harpy eagles. These eagles eat large prey such as deer monkeys and sloths .
These animals live in forests There are 12 species of snake eagles. These are small to medium-sized birds. They hunt mostly snakes sometimes lizards and frogs. These eagles live in forests deserts and savannahs. There are 30 species of dwarf eagles. These are birds of all sizes. Dwarf eagles live everywhere near the Arctic Circle and in the jungle. All dwarf eagles have feathers on their legs up to their talons.
The Steller’s Sea Eagle is the largest fishing bird of prey. It lives in Russia and China along the coast of the great ocean. And its favorite food is pacific salmon. It also eats hares and geese. This is a very rare eagle.
Most eagles lay one or two eggs per brood, the smaller species often three. They can live for up to 30 years, with the smaller species living the shortest lives. At hundreds of feet high, they can soar without flapping and then plunge onto their prey with incredible speed.
When a fish swims just under the water, an osprey grabs its prey. Sometimes it grabs a fish that weighs more than itself. These types of eagle are often robbed of their prey by terns a other bald eagles. It also hunts pelicans that have caught a fish of their own. He startles the pelican so that it loses the fish from its mouth.
Body
The eagle’s body is built to fly and catch prey. It must be light enough to take off and fly, but also strong enough to attack and take prey with it. An eagle does not weigh an ounce too much. The feathers of a large eagle are very substantial but weigh almost nothing. An American bald eagle has more than 7,000 feathers, which together weigh less than 600 g. If you had 30 of them in your hand, they would weigh less than a penny.
Eagle wings are incredibly strong. Each feather is held together by more than three hundred thousand hooks. Eagle wings are miraculously light. The female bald eagle can have wings 2.5 m wide that weigh no more than 900 g. This is because the feathers are light and lay on top of each other, so there is a lot of air between them. An eagle wing is comparatively stronger than an airplane wing.
Food
All eagles eat different. There are 11 eagles that eat fish. The other eagles eat reptiles and small mammals, rabbits, snakes, monkeys and many other animals, but the harpy sometimes eats deer. This bird has claws 13 cm long.
The future
The eagle needs large forests to hunt in. If humans cut down these large forests, many more eagles will die. So the eagle has to deal with poisoning. That’s because their prey contains factory gas. Because humans are building more and more factories. The eagles will be gassed from the exhaust of the polluters.
A mistake was made in the past that caused thousands of eagles to die. That mistake is written here Eagles also have trouble with sheep farmers and shepherds. Because they thought that golden eagles and bald eagles ate their sheep and chickens. So there was a reward for whoever shot down eagles.
Eyes
When an eagle flies high, it can see its prey from 3 km away. The ability of eyes to focus on objects at a certain distance is called resolution, which can be 8 times better than that of human eyes in an eagle.
Birds have an extra eyelid called the third eyelid It is a kind of cutaneous membrane. The eye can be cleaned or protected with it. Eagles often pull the membrane over their eyes when feeding their young. They can then not accidentally peck in the eyes of the parents.
Hunting
Some eagles can reach 325 km per hour in a dive for prey. Eagles do not always plunge towards their prey at great speed Instead, they sometimes hover slowly downwards with their wings spread. They descend so gently that their prey does not hear them coming.
Large eagles can strike very hard. The blow of an American bald eagle striking its prey can be twice as hard as the blow of a rifle bullet. Bald eagles are ospreys. Usually they catch fish by flying low over the water and grabbing the fish out of the water with their claws.
This method of capture can only be applied to fish swimming close to the surface. Eagles sometimes steal the spoils of herons pelicans and other birds Eagles hunt by themselves or in pairs. Unless there is a lot of food in one place In Alaska there are hundreds of eagles because many salmon swim there. Those salmon are tired of swimming against the current so they are easy to catch.
Sometimes eagles jump into the water with a big splash to catch a big fish The African bald eagle uses its wings to keep a fish from escaping. In East Africa, eagles even hunt flamingos. These types of eagle usually attack when the large pink birds fly in a flock. Yellow-browed African eagles probably have more variety in their food than any other eagles. Their menu ranges from grasshoppers and termites to dead elephants.
Then another ostrich egg and all sorts of other things. Hawk eagles will fly under a bird then grab the bird with its talons. This way of hunting only the Hawk Eagle uses the others hunt on the ground or near water. The Vulture Eagle has the craziest eating habits. These types of eagle do not catch animals. But use their beaks to break open nuts from a palm tree and eat the fatty food.
Chicks
Baby eagles are small and helpless when they hatch, but they don’t stay that way for long. All eagle parents take very good care of their young, giving them all the food they want. The young grow like hell. Golden eagles weigh only 85 grams at birth, but after 45 days they weigh 40 times as much.
By the time a golden eagle chick wants to hatch, the egg begins to squeak. After it begins to squeak, the chick takes about 15 hours to pick its first hole in the shell. The animal has a special egg tooth for this purpose. Once the first hole is there, the chick begins to try even harder. But it can still take 35 to 45 hours for the young bird to work its way out completely.
When the chicks finally hatch, they are usually very tired. They then rest for a while As they dry out, their feathers become downy. From the time they hatch, it takes 65 to 75 days for golden eagles to start flying. During this period, their white downy coat gives way to dark feathers. Baby eagles do not drink milk like human babies. Instead, they are given small pieces of meat.
Nest
Large eagles build nests made from large branches. A nest must be built in a safe place. In a tall tree or against a rock wall. The golden eagle prefers against the rock wall. Many species of eagles use the same nest every year, which is constantly being expanded. A nest can last a very long time.
