When is the best time to come to Wabasha to see Bald Eagles?

Nearly 100 Bald Eagles live in the Wabasha area year-round. The thousands of migrating eagles can be seen from October through early April.

Is the male eagle the one with the white head and tail and the female the brown bird?

All adult eagles have white heads and tails, which they get in their fourth or fifth years, irrespective of their sex. The brown or speckled eagles are birds that have not yet reached adulthood.

What kind of fish are they catching in the river?

Usually they catch small shad that have come through the turbines at the dam. These fish are dazed, dead, or injured and make easy prey for the eagles. Occasionally eagles may catch other species of fish, but their main prey are the shad.

Where do these eagles come from, and where do they go?

We don’t know for sure! There has never been a tracking study done on this wintering population, but we believe they come from northern Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Minnesota and Ontario.

How long do they stay here?

The first of the true migrating eagles usually arrive in the Wabasha area at the beginning of November with numbers continuing to increase through December. 

The spring migration is usually initiated in late February beginning with the mature males.

How much do they have to eat each day?

A wintering eagle has to eat between six to eleven percent of their body weight each day. A large female eagle weighing 14 pounds needs to consume between .9 and 1.5 pounds of food a day. The amount needed is dependent upon temperatures, the amount of energy expended to find food, and the type of food available.

Scavenging in agricultural fields provides birds with a high-energy source of food since red meat contains more calories than fish. Eagles disturbed on their wintering feeding areas are placed at a disadvantage not only because they might be driven from their food resources, but they may also need to expend more energy to find other food.

What do they eat?

Mostly fish with some carrion (red meat) collected in the fields near the river. They may also take a duck now and then, along with rabbits and other small mammals.

How big are eagles?

“Big” is a descriptive word that must be defined. For instance, does the questioner mean length, weight, or wingspan?

Adult-sized eagles, depending on sex and age, will have a wingspan of six to eight feet. Females have larger wingspans than males and weigh approximately 30% more. First year birds have larger wingspans than older birds of the same sex because of their longer, “practice” feathers, which  make learning to fly easier. Eagles will weigh between 8-14 lbs. with a body length of 30” to 43”.

How long do they live?

Only about 50% first-year birds live. Studies have shown that only one in ten eagles make it to five years of age (adulthood). For those that do make it, their lifespan in the wild is usually between 20 – 30 years. Those in captivity can live 50+ years.

Where do these eagles nest?

Eagles usually build a nest about one-third of the way from the top of a “super-canopy” tree and near a lake or river. While most of Minnesota’s eagles nest in the northern part of the state, there are several active nests in Wabasha and Buffalo Counties.

How big is an eagle nest?

Nests are refurbished each spring before the eggs are laid, but other material may be added after eggs are laid and even when the chicks are still in the nest. Nests therefore grow through the years. Most nests are about four feet wide and three feet’ or more deep. Nests can get so large that they often bring down the tree they are built in -- a record nest made it to twelve feet wide and fifteen feet tall and weighed over 1000 pounds!

When do they nest?

Eagles in Minnesota begin nesting in February by laying 1-3 eggs, which hatch about 35 days later.

Are those hawks sitting in the trees with the eagles?

Probably not. Eagles do not get their white heads and tails until they are about five years old. Before that, they have brown heads and tails and may be confused with hawks. There are, however, red-tailed hawks in the area, but they are much smaller than eagles and generally have a white breast.

How well can they see?

This is one of those areas where the answer depends on who you talk to or what you read. Scott Mehus says that they can see a rabbit running 2-3 miles away. This is helpful because the Wisconsin bluffs are 3 miles away so you can give people some perspective.

Steve Budio in Eagle Dreams says a golden eagle can see a pigeon’s wing beat at three miles.

Eagles can see objects 3-4 times farther away than humans. One study suggests that one eagle can detect another eagle soaring from a distance of 23-65 kilometers (quoted by Mark Stalmaster in the Bald Eagle).

Raptors do not possess highly magnified vision as much as they are able to discriminate fine details at a much greater distance and in much less time than humans (Scott Weidensaul).

Each eye of an eagle has two fovea (areas of the retina with the best vision). Eagles are capable of using one set of fovea to look straight ahead with binocular vision. Making use of their second fovea, they can also shift to monocular vision. This is what they seem to do when they want to observe another eagle at a distance, sometimes accomplished by tilting their heads. What they can’t do is move their eyes from side to side. The eyes already take up so much room in the skull, that there is no room for the muscles used to control eye movement. To make up for this, they turn their heads. They have 14 cervical vertebrae in their necks (humans have 7) and can rotate their heads 180 degrees.

How fast can they fly?

Bald Eagles, flapping their wings, can sustain flight at about 35 miles per hour. When in a dive, eagles have been clocked at 100+ miles/hour. But truly, these birds are built to soar. The Bald Eagle takes full advantage of the thermals. They will ride one thermal to gain altitude, and then glide to another. Working with these natural columns of hot air, eagles conserve a great deal of energy. Here on the river, one often sees them slope soaring. The winds come across the river and hit the bluffs on the other side. This results in a nice “cushion” of air for the birds to ride on. You can often see them cruising along the bluffs, never flapping, just making minimal adjustments to their wing position.

Fall migration favors a wind from the north or northwest, and spring migration a south wind. Eagles like a good tail wind.

How much can an eagle pick up?

Depends on the size of the eagle.  An Alaskan eagle can pick up more than a Florida eagle.  Taking off from a stand still position a Florida eagle can maybe pick up about two pounds; but a big Alaskan eagle can maybe pick up four pounds or more.  If the eagle is in flight and has momentum in place, an eagle in our area could possibly lift three to four pounds or slightly more depending on the wind conditions present.

Why do they just sit there?

Winter is difficult for all wildlife, including eagles. To survive, they are inactive to conserve energy. The only time that they move is during social interactions, finding food, bathing, and flying to the night roost. In fact, eagles spend about 92% of their winter days just sitting, and the river’s current washes food right to them.

How long have the eagles been nesting in the Mississippi River area?

In 1968 only one pair of bald eagles nested across the river from the NEC in the Upper Mississippi National Wildlife Refuge (UMNWR), today over 130 pairs make the refuge their home. After the ban of DDT in 1973 eagles started returning to the UMNWR en mass.

How much does a nest weight?

Hundreds of pounds -- some record nests have weighed over 1000 pounds!

How long do eagles live?

Eagles have lived in captivity for 48 years under ideal conditions; in the wild, this age may be cut in half.

Where did these eagles come from originally?

Harriet and Angel came from the Grantsburg, WI area and were rehabilitated at the University of Minnesota Raptor Center, and then transferred to NEC in 2000. Columbia was originally found in Dunbar, WI, and was transferred to NEC for the U of M in 2003.

How can you tell the eagles are female?

While eagles can weight 7 - 17 lbs., the females weight 25% - 30% more than the males. The bald eagle females in this region typically weigh about 10-12 lbs.

How many eggs do eagles usually have in one season?

The number of eggs can be from one to four, but most of the time the hen lays two eggs.

How long do the eggs take to hatch?

Incubation takes about 35 days.

How many days are there between the laying of eggs?

The average time between egg laying can range from 2 - 4 days, and they will hatch out that many days apart if all goes well.

How far do eagles travel?

They stay around the nest, usually within several square miles of the nest sight. During the non-breeding season, they may travel from Canada to the Midwest US along the Mississippi.

Do the young return to their natal area for breeding?

Until young eagles reach maturity, at about age 5, they are nomadic, wandering, perfecting their hunting skills, without a set territory. On average they return to within 50-60 miles of where they were hatched when they are ready to breed.