Introduction
Aquila Chrysaëtos - is the scientific name of golden eagle (also known as American war bird, bird of Jupiter, black eagle, brown eagle, calumet bird, calumet eagle, Canadian eagle, gray eagle, jackrabbit eagle, king of birds, mountain eagle, ringtail, ring-tailed eagle, royal eagle, war bird, white-tailed eagle) - ranges over a large part of Northern Hemisphere.
This is the eagle that in ancient times was regarded as a symbol of courage and power because of its size, superb aerial skills, and inaccessibility of many of its nest sites, in wild and mountainous country. In Roman myths this eagle is associated with the principal deity, Jupiter. It was the emblem of certain Roman legions, of France under the Bonaparte, of Germany, and of Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires.
The natives of the Asiatic steppes train the golden eagle to aid in hunting foxes and gazelles.
Females attain a length
of about 1 meter from the tip of the beak to the tip of the tail, and a
wingspread of about 2 meters. Males are smaller, like most of the birds of prey.
A characteristic of the genus is the feathering of the legs down to the toes; in
other eagles the lower part of the leg is bare and scaled. The body plumage is
dark brown, with distinct golden wash over the back of the head and neck; this
characteristic gave the species its name. The tail of adults is brown with
several indistinct pale bands; that of immature birds is white with a dark brown
terminal band.
Most nests, of Aquila Chrysaëtos, are placed on cliff ledges but in some areas
large trees are preferred. The nest is used from year to year and the birds add
more sticks, so that the nest may eventually be as much as 1.8 meters in
diameter and 1.5 meters high.
The golden eagle snatches up many a rabbit and squirrel but if the great bird is pressed by hunger, it may attack small lambs or turkeys. Observers have reported that eagles sometimes resort to the device of hunting in pairs; in at least on instance a number of them launched as mass attack upon a prong horned antelope.
While the life span of eagles in the wild is naturally a matter for conjecture, we do know of a golden eagle that lived for forty-six years in a zoo.
