Wednesday 29 January 2014

Eagle Days

A couple of weeks ago we went to an Eagles days event at the Chain of Rocks bridge.  Since we live near the Missouri and Mississippi river there are a large number of Eagles in our area and they are a sight to see!

When we arrived we sat in on a quick getting to know the eagle session.  Learned about their nesting, eating and other habits. 

We got to meet a beautiful eagle who is now at a local rescue center due to a bad wing.  We were told she arrive from Florida and isn't too happy with the cold weather of Missouri:).  I can relate:)!!!

We saw an example of an eagle's nest and learned that eagles will return to the same nesting site every year and keep building on it...the largest eagles nest on record was 9 feet across and 6 feet deep.  It was also interesting that smaller bird will build their nests inside the eagles nest if it is big enough.

finding out the wing span of an adult eagle

MarioFan has a ways to go


Next we took a walk across the Chain of Rocks bridge to view the Eagle area


We had to leave Daddy behind cause he hates heights and bridges

We saw several of these in the river not exactly sure what they are, maybe light houses of some sort ?

About 2/3 across the bridge we came to a heated tent (it was a cold blustery day) and the St Louis Audubon society had set up an exhibit

Kids got to see stuffed birds from our area

they could hold the birds and see up close their beaks and claws.  No eagles were on display.  I didn't think to ask if the birds had died naturally or not.  I would assume so.


Kids had lots of questions and the people were so kind to answer them

Next we went outside to see the Eagles who were fishing and resting in the trees of the Mississippi River

We got to see 2 Eagles in a tree.  There were some flying in the air but they were really too high for me to get a picture 
We had a really lovely day out and we are told the Eagles are in abundance from February until April when they start to nest.  There are several other events being taken place throughout this time and we just might go out again to see more eagles.

2 comments:

  1. That's cool that you have so many eagles in your area! We have just started having eagles return to our area in the last 7 years or so. So pretty much everyone stops what they are doing to check them out when they fly overhead. I did not realize that their nests were that big! We've had some build nests on cranes and so forth and those never got that big, but now that I know what they look like, I will be on the lookout for nests in the wild.

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  2. Aw w another awesome adventure. I really enjoyed this one. When we lived in Spokane Washington their where quite a few Eagles on a lake we often went too. I find them to be amazing birds and it was fun to learn today about how they keep building their eagles nest. I just connected when reading this that when they give out the Eagle Scout award they ask for all the scouts in the room that have the Eagle award to come forward and sit up front in the Eagle's nest.
    I loved all the pictures and i love that our children ask questions as you are going on these excursions.
    Blessings to all!

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