Field trip to see the bald eagles! Lots of great pictures!

Bald eagle days are coming up this weekend.  I love this because there are going to be classes featuring bald eagles and other birds of prey. There will be demonstrations and lots of activities to do with the kids.  Knowing bald eagle days were coming, I planned to do a unit study with the kiddos about our national bird.  For the past 2 weeks, we have been putting together our lapbooks and studying a bald eagles life: habitat, diet, weight, etc.  The kids have had so much fun!

So this morning, I decided to take the kids out and see if we could get close enough to take some pictures of these majestic birds.  We came away with some really great shots, even though we found them to be pretty timid.  Here are a few:

We think this is an actual pair because they stuck together the whole time we were observing them.  One would fly away, so would the other one. Then they would land in the same tree together again.

I felt pretty lucky to get this shot since he had just taken off from the tree.  Check out those talons!

This is one of Chloe's shots.  :)

Not a very clear photo, but I was able to get pretty close.

 

 

 

If you want to watch a live bald eagle taking care of her eggs, check out this web site.  This is a live feed from Iowa and is so cool!  My kids have enjoyed watching this mother bald eagle for much of the morning.  She laid her first egg on Feb. 17th. As far as we can tell, there are three eggs.

http://blog.nwf.org/2011/04/eagle-cam-iowa-bald-eagle-eggs-hatching-live/
Some trivia from all our studying:

-The bald eagle was chosen as our national symbol in 1790 after much debate.  The founding fathers wanted to choose an animal that you can only find in the United States.  (They almost chose the turkey.)

- A bald eagle can live from 20-30 years.

-The female is bigger than the male and it's wingspan can be 90 inches!  A male's wingspan is closer to 80.  How big is your wingspan?  lol

-Bald eagles can take down deer, large snakes, as well as the rabbits, mice, fish, etc. that we always think of it eating.  (we've seen youtube videos to prove it.)

The kids are preparing all of these things for our project fair at our home school group.  I love learning/teaching new things with the kids when it is so much fun!  Isaac said, "I feel so close to nature!" this morning on our way home.  :)