Bald eagles have been on my mind lately. They are magnificent creatures with many admirable traits.
Eagles wait until they are between four and five years old before seeking a mate. In areas where there are more eagles, they wait up to seven years of age to seek a mate. When they find one, they have a spectacular ritual. The male and female perform aerial displays while screeching to one another (love language for an eagle). They finally grasp talons and spiraling toward earth. If they can’t break free, they hit the ground and die together. Those that survive remain together for life.
The mated pair begin building their eyrie together. Location-location-location. They find a tall tree or cliff near water so they can fish. They need a good vantage point for hunting. Construction takes great patience, cooperation and partnership. Each year the bonded pair will add one to two feet of new materials to the nest. This additional layer covers last year’s waste (before the eaglets learned to back them bottoms to the edge and shoot their poop out of the nest). The new nesting materials include fresh leaves, grass and moss to repel insects. (The largest nest on record was 9.5 across, 20 feet deep and weighed a whopping 2.5 tons!)
Once their eyrie is built, the eagle mates start their family – a clutch of one to three eaglets a year. Mama eagle does the brooding in the beginning, but very soon both Mama and Papa eagles share parenting duties. It takes a lot of hunting and fishing to fill each eaglets’ voracious appetite. (If you’ve ever had or known a teenager, I’m sure you understand…) When the eaglets are old enough to fly and fend for themselves, Mama and Papa just stop feeding them. Those young’uns are quickly motivated to get out on their own.
Others interesting facts about eagles:
They have eyesight 8X that of a human being.
They are powerful fliers – in a dive, an eagle can reach 100 mph. They can fly up to 15,000 feet at 65 miles per hour.
Rather than fighting strong winds, eagles fly into a storm, conserving their strength by using the upward air currents to rise above the storm where they are safe and can gain a better perspective of what’s happening.
The grip of the eagle’s rear talons can reach 400 psi. These talons are 4-5 inches long (the size of a grizzly bear’s claw)
Eagles live up to 30 years in the wild – in captivity they can live up to 50-70 years.
Eagles are notoriously territorial. They worked hard to build their home and have their family, and they will not tolerate trespassers.
Bald eagles are a magnificent creation of God that offers many lessons for all of us. A book full, at least. But the one lesson that stands out for me right now is this: It takes a left wing and a right wing working together to make an eagle fly.