Ecology Alaska

Eagle Update

The past couple weeks have seen few changes in the places our GPS tagged eagles have been traveling. The females are still seemingly content to stay on the Chilkat, while the males are still southward in and around Prince Rupert.

The adult female, 3E, and the immature female, 4P, are both right around the area we initially caught them:

3E

4P

The mature male, 3C, is still moving around a bit, bouncing eastward, then westward again, then a bit to the southeast, though he is still near Prince Rupert. You can see pretty clearly on this image how he has been following waterways closely as he travels.

3C

The immature male, 2Z, has now been in Prince Rupert for more than a month. This may be where he stays until spring. It seems 2Z is spending time feeding at a landfill near the city. Since he is a younger bird, he may not be able to compete with other eagles for better food sources (e.g. fish), or perhaps his hunting skills aren't quite up to scratch. Whatever the reason, doesn't appear to be following the salmon, but rather, the dump truck.

2Z

In the upper right hand corner of the photo above, you can see a little portion of 3C's track, where the two birds were near one another for a short time.

Labels: Alaska, Alaska bald eagles, Canada, eagles, ecology, Prince Rupert, satellite tracking, urbanization, wild birds

Eagle Update!

Although 4N's tag is out of commission, we still have four birds to follow! We're always excited to see where these eagles are moving, and we hope you are, too.

First up, the females! Both females, 3E, the adult, and 4P, the immature eagle, have been sticking around the Chilkat Valley.

3E has made a couple trips to the ridgeline south of the Chilkat, but is otherwise hanging out around the area between 19- and 21-mile on the Haines Highway-- pretty much the only region of the Chilkat River that is unfrozen this time of year:

On the ferry!

Canadian banana slugs not nearly
as attractive as Santa Cruz Ones

Morse Creek

Hiking in Prince Rupert

Rachel sent some video and photos of her stay in Prince Rupert and her ferry ride up to Haines. Unfortunately, Rigby had to sit in the car deck for most of the trip. The 30 hour ferry ride traveled from Prince Rupert to Juneau and finally to Haines where Rachel arrived this morning!