Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos)
The Golden eagle’s scientific name is Aquila chrysaetos and it is part of the Booted or True Eagle family. These beautiful birds can be found throughout the northern hemisphere, living in prairie coulees, mountainous areas and in rugged terrains that create a profuse amount of updrafts.
The golden eagle is about 3 feet or just under a metre, weighing about 15 pounds or 7 kg’s and has a wingspan of about 7 feet or 2 metres. The colour of the eagle is a dark yellowish brown and the bird can live between fifteen and twenty years.
The golden eagle’s territory is in remote areas where it lives a solitary life even through winter. This great hunter, hunts in a large territory that can be up to 162 square miles or 260 square km in size. Due to its expertise in hunting it’s not very often that you will see it eating carrion. The golden eagle eats a wide variety of small animals like the marmots, groundhogs, snakes, pheasants, rabbits, cats, foxes, skunks, grouse, ground squirrel, meadowlarks, crows and tortoises.
The golden eagle will start mating at the age of four years and will stay paired with the same mate for as long as it lives. Occasionally they build their nest in a tree but prefer to nest on cliff faces or in rocky crags, returning every year to the same nest. The female golden eagle will lay between one to three eggs once every year and will do the majority of the 41 to 45 day incubation of the eggs. The male golden eagle’s job is to regularly supply the female with food and together they share the responsibility of looking after and raising the young. When the eaglets are first born they weigh about three ounces and will stay in the nest between nine to eleven weeks before they fledge.
Depending on the territory of the golden eagle, they will either live in their nesting territory throughout the year, or if there is a lack of food in winter, they will migrate a short distance away because of their excellent hunting abilities.