Species: Aquila chrysaetos

Golden Eagle

Species

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Species of concern in the Puget Sound watershed

Encyclopedia of Puget Sound

A very large raptor with mostly brown plumage, a golden wash on the back of the head and neck, and a mostly horn-colored bill; tail is faintly banded; immatures have white at the base of the primaries and and white tail with a dark terminal band; total length 76-102 cm, wingspan 203-224 cm (NGS 1983).

Articles:

Golden Eagle (Aquila chryseatos)

August 01, 2013

This article was originally published by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife as part of its annual report Threatened and Endangered Wildlife in Washington.

Classification

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Craniata

Class

Aves

Order

Falconiformes

Family

Accipitridae

Genus

Aquila

NatureServe

Source:
ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.100925

Classification

Other Global Common Names

aigle royal - Águila Real

Informal Taxonomy

<p>Animals, Vertebrates - Birds - Raptors</p>

Formal Taxonomy

Animalia - Craniata - Aves - Falconiformes - Accipitridae - Aquila

Ecology and Life History

Short General Description

A large raptor.

Migration

<p>true - true - true - A juvenile from Denali National Park, Alaska, migrated through Yukon Territory and interior British Columbia to a wintering site in east-central Idaho; another juvenile migrated through the Yukon, Alberta, and Saskatchewan to northeastern Montana (Britten et al. 1995).</p>

Non-migrant

true

Locally Migrant

true

Food Comments

The diet consists promarily of small mammals (e.g., rabbits, marmots, ground squirrels) but sometimes also includes large insects, snakes, birds, juvenile ungulates, and carrion. In the western Great Basin, the four most frequent prey species were black-tailed jackrabbit, mountain cottontail, yellow-bellied marmot, and chukar; Lagomorpha accounted for 91 percent of the prey biomass (Bloom and Hawks 1982). Golden eagles rarely attack large, healthy mammals (e.g., pigs, sheep, deer) (Terres 1980). Individual can fast for days between feedings. They hunt while soaring or from a perch (the latter especially used by young), and individuals may hunt cooperatively. See Palmer (1988) for further details.

Reproduction Comments

Egg dates: by late April in northern Alaska (later if snow persists); peak in late February-March in the region from California to Texas (but earlier nesting may yield young ready to fly as early as March 1 in Texas); late February-early March in Utah; March-April in northeastern United States. Clutch size is 1-3, rarely 4 (usually 2). Incubation, mostly by the female, lasts about 43-45 days. Young can fly at 60-77 days (fledging takes longer in the far north than in the southern part of the range). Young are cared for by parents for 30+ additional days; family unit sometimes may remain together several months. Typically first breeds in 4th or 5th year. Lifelong monogamy may be the rule, though some apparent exceptions have been recorded. A positive correlation between breeding success and jackrabbit number was reported in Idaho, Colorado, and Utah. Distance between active nests almost never is less than 0.8 km. See Palmer (1988) for further details on reproduction.

Length

102

Weight

4692

Conservation Status

NatureServe Global Status Rank

Global Status Last Reviewed

1996-11-22

Global Status Last Changed

1996-11-22

Distribution

Conservation Status Map

Global Range

H - >2,500,000 square km (greater than 1,000,000 square miles) - H - In North America, breeding occurs from western and northern Alaska eastward through Northwest Territories to Labrador, and south to northern Mexico, Texas, western Oklahoma, and western Kansas, and in eastern North America southward to New York and northern New England (rare). See Lee and Spofford (1990) for a review of nesting records from the central and southern Appalachians (most nesting records south of the Adirondacks are doubtful). Golden eagles breed also in the Palearctic. The winter range in North America extends from south-central Alaska and southern Canada southward through the breeding range, and casually farther southward. In the United States, the species is most numerous in winter in the Rocky Mountain states, Great Basin, and western edge of the Great Plains (Root 1988). See Milsap and Vana (1984) for information on winter range in the eastern United States. Northernmost populations in Eurasia winter south to northern Africa (Sibley and Monroe 1990).

Global Range Code

Global Range Description

>2,500,000 square km (greater than 1,000,000 square miles)

ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.100925