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| Hacking Towers | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jul 18 2006, 01:51 PM (288 Views) | |
| sas | Jul 18 2006, 01:51 PM Post #1 |
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Member
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When the 12 week olds are released form the hacking towers, since they are unable to hunt for themselves, do you provide the food for them and if so how to you wean them to find/steal food on their own? One other question if you do not mind. In reference to the eaglets in BC, if for some reason, the last one (we call him Lil/Sid) still on the nest never fledges, will the adults leave him there alone and continue to Alaska to fend for himself? Just did not know when it is time for them to go will the adults go no matter what? But we are hopeful that he will take to the air any day. Adults are currently still providng large quantities of food in my opinion. Thanks for your time. |
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| Eagle Guy | Jul 18 2006, 02:17 PM Post #2 |
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Advanced Member
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When we release eagles from the hacking towers we continue to place food in and/or around the towers for about a month and then start to move it out on ridges away from the towers to encourage them to search for food. Most birds move down on to the beaches and seem to find a variety of foods washed up on the beach, including fish, marine mammals and birds. Foraging is primarily instinctive and I don't think the adults play much of a role in teaching the youngsters to find food, as they are only together about a month following fledging. Regarding how long adults will continue to feed a bird that does not fledge, I really don't know the answer because I've not heard of that situation before. Northern birds still have a few months before they should migrate, so there is plenty of time for the other chick to fledge. If it was the subordinate chick it could be up to a couple of weeks behind the other eaglet because of a lack of food during development. I think the Santa Cruz chick's lack of food during the first three days after hatching is why it took 13 1/2 weeks for it to fledge. |
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| sas | Jul 18 2006, 02:19 PM Post #3 |
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Member
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Thank you so much for taking the time to answer these questions! |
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| ostrich2 | Jul 18 2006, 04:17 PM Post #4 |
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Advanced Member
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Thank you Dr. Sharpe for the information. I imagine you are probably far too busy with your other projects to keep track of other cams like the Saanich nest, but we have observed some fascinating behaviour from the two eaglets in that nest. What you described is exactly what has been observed with the smaller Saanich eaglet (Lil). He was and is the subordinate eaglet, and there were a couple of periods where he had substantial challenges getting food. Early on when the cam first started the larger eaglet (Big) consistently bullied and pecked Lil, forcing him into submission, and giving him very limited opportunities for food items. This was especially pronounced when hunting success seemed to be relatively sparse. Then the adults started bringing a lot more food items to the nest, and once her (Big is hypothesized to be female) crop was full she let up on bullying Lil and he started to do better. At the same time Lil started to show a number of fascinating behaviours as he endeavoured to get access to food items by his own efforts. - He would sometimes take a peck from Big and feign submission, and then gradually and slowly move into a position where he could beg for food pieces from a feeding adult without incurring further aggression from his sibling, using the adult as a buffer. - in other cases he would sneak into a position where he could make an outright attempt to steal the food from his sister or the feeding adult. At first this consisted of him just grabbing the food and making a (literally) run for it, and then developed into grab-and-mantle behaviours as his mantling behaviour started. Even the mantling became a game of one-upmanship between the eaglets as Big tried to find ways to get around the mantling of Lil. When Big discovered she could steal items from underneath Lil's tail, he started pushing his tail down onto the ground to defeat this strategy. So it does not sound unreasonable that Lil might be some days behind his sister (who has already fledged a couple of days ago as far as we can tell). Since A49 was an only-eaglet we didn't have a chance to see these types of interactions with him, but who knows what next year's nest might bring? Edited to ask a question: have any of the nests you've seen on Santa Cruz so far produced multiple eaglets, or have they all been one-chick only nests? |
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6:29 AM Jul 11