Fla., wlijcli lie coiu'ludes may liave 

 been the large.st in America. This 

 nest, typical of many found in that 

 State, Avas higher than it was 

 wide — 20 feet deep and 91^ feet 

 across at tlie top. 



Another nest of substantial size 

 formerly located on the Eastern 

 Shore of Maryland has been de- 

 scribed by Frank IJ. Smith (1936). 

 This nest had been occupied for 

 more than 30 years when a hurri- 

 cane blew it down in 1933. "The 

 remains of the nest were carefully 

 sifted by hand and placed in bas- 

 kets for weighing. * * * The forty- 

 three bushels of material in the 

 nest weighed 1274 pounds."' Had 

 sticks which remained attached to 

 the nest tree been included, the total 

 weight would have been more than 

 1,300 pounds. 



The main structure of the bald 

 eagle's nest is composed of sticks 

 and small limbs, and clods of earth 

 and masses of A^egetation are added 

 in the central portion. There may 

 be a lining of pliable vegetation, but 

 the nest surface is nearly flat sur- 

 rounded by a rim of sticks (fig. 4). 

 As the nest is reconditioned in sub- 

 sequent years more material is 

 added, thus gradually increasing 

 the weight of the nest in height and 

 in width until it finally may crash 

 because of the extreme weight. 



In Ohio, Dr. Herrick found that 

 eagles chose hickory, elm, or syca- 

 more trees for nesting sites. Origi- 

 nally, many of these trees were in 

 the borders of wood lots, but as time 

 went on some of them became iso- 

 lated by the cutting of surrounding 

 timber, and the nesting trees were 



preserved only through the solici- 

 tude of landowners. In the Pacific 

 N(n-thwest and in Southeastern 

 Alaska, tall conifers are used as 

 nesting sites. Altitude, as a rule, is 

 sought (fig. 6), and nests in Ohio 

 often are 70-80 feet above the 

 ground, while those in the spruces 

 and hendocks of the Xorthwest may 

 be more than 100 feet from the 

 ground. 



In the course of his Alaskan field- 

 work, the senior author computed 

 bald-eagle nests to average about 

 51/^ feet high and 6% feet across. 

 On the basis of 11 nests measured or 

 estimated, the height from the 

 ground to the top of the nest varied 

 from 45 to 137 feet, with an aver- 

 age of 77 feet. In this region, Sitka 

 s])ruce was the favorite nesting tree. 



In contrast with the nesting sites 

 described, bald eagles may be 

 forced by lack of tall arboreal 

 growth to nest in low vegetation, 

 or even on the ground. Such a con- 

 dition prevails in the Aleutian Is- 

 lands in Alaska, where their nests 

 are placed on rocky cliffs or pin- 

 nacles (fig. 7) : and in Florida, 

 I^i'oley (1947) recorded a nest only 

 15 feet above water in a mangrove. 

 Bendire (1892), quoting Capt. \^. V. 

 Grove, reported the finding of two 

 eagle nests placed on the ground of 

 small islands in the Gulf of Mexico 

 off the Texas coast. One, estab- 

 lished by a pair of birds still in 

 their innnature plumage, consisted 

 of a few sticks on the otherwise 

 bare ground. The other nest had 

 been built up through successive 

 years of use to a height of 6 feet. 

 Also on record is the nesting of a 



U 



