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Bald eagles winter
throughout the majority of the country with the highest concentration in the West and Midwest. The eagles that have nested in an area have a tendency to stay in that area . If there is adequate food nearby and the weather is not too violent. Northern bald eagles tend to only migrate as far south as need be to find the necessary food and shelter to rear their young. The adult bald eagles that migrate tend to spend the winters in the same area year after year, but they do however, stay mobile, following the changes in weather to where the food is available(Gerrard 1988). In the winter, night roostings of eagles occur on sites where there are large numbers of birds congregated together in a specific area. In these communal roosting sites, the eagles begin arriving generally two hours before dark. The eagles can travel up to 10 miles from their feeding sites to their roosting sites. The birds generally arrive as singles or in small disconnected groups.The birds that arrive first are the ones that get the choice roosttrees and perches. As the new birds arrive into the roost, the birds that are already on the roost begin to vocalize very loudly to these new arrivals as the fight for the perch positions. There may be as many as 100 to 200 birds in some of these communal roost sites. The birds begin to leave the roost before sunrise to go to their favorite feeding sites(Wusk 1999). |