Young eaglets grow rapidly and may eat up to two pounds of fish per days!   Eaglets are fed a steady diet of fish, occasionally supplemented by water fowl (ducks, geese) or water birds (gulls, cormorants).  About 85% of a chick’s diet will typically consist of fish such as carp, white sucker, shad, bullhead and sunfish.  The adults capture and tear the fish into small strips, offering them to the chicks. The chicks snatch the food from the adult’s beak and swallow it whole. An eagle chick will eat as much as it can at a single feeding, storing food in its crop. The crop, an organ located near the base of the bird’s neck, will enlarge as it fills, resembling a golf ball.  About ten weeks after hatching they begin to make short flights from the nest spending much time with the parent birds observing the adults as they find, cathc, and eat food.

4 photos posted from today:  http://www.pbase.com/birdshots/image/150523490   Click “next” in upper right corner to advance frames…..enjoy!