148 THE RAPTORIAL BIRDS OF IOWA 



While the Bald Eagle is a noble bird when in full flight, or perched 

 on some lofty eminence, his habits and general character at times do 

 not sustain the ideal which the public entertains with regard to him. 

 A persecutor of the industrious Osprey, and an invader of the chicken 

 yard, he is more often taken while perpetrating some such misde- 

 meanor, than in his more dignified and sublime moments. 



Though remaining occasionally through the winter, the early spring 

 days which witness the breaking up of the ice in the larger water 

 courses and the northward movement of the wildfowl, find the Bald 

 Eagle migrating northward, ever on the lookout for fish or other food 

 whether living or decayed. 



On one occasion while the writer was floating down Red Cedar 

 river in the latter part of March, he saw seven of these eagles in the 

 course of the day, all of them being in the immature plumage. 



We are indebted to Professor Charles R. Keyes, of Mount Ver- 

 non, Iowa, for the only authentic record that has come to hand of 

 the nesting of the Bald Eagle in Iowa. "Mr. Arthur Jayne found a 

 nest of this species the last of March, 1892, two and one-half miles 

 northwest of Waubeek, Linn county. The nest was up 60 or 65 feet 

 in a large bass-wood tree on the south side of the Wapsipinicon river, 

 on a bluff overlooking the stream. The owner of the land said that 

 the birds Had nested there for years. Mr. Jayne got up to the nest 

 but was unable to look fully into it. On the last visit both the old 

 birds flew about, coming, he thought, as close as twenty-five or thirty 

 feet. A week previously one old bird had remained on the nest while 

 he had watched for some time from below and had made unsuccess- 

 ful attempts to climb the tree. The nest was a very bulky affair, a 

 regular 'wagon load' of sticks, some of them as large as one's wrist." 



Though nesting much less frequently in Iowa than in former 

 years, there is little doubt that the Bald Eagle still finds suitable nest- 

 ing sites and hunting grounds in some parts of the state. The fre- 

 quency of such names as Eagle Rock, and Eagle's Nest, in various 

 localities in Iowa suggests that it was once not uncommon in this 

 region. 



The nest is usually described as a mass of sticks and other debris, 

 sometimes six feet in diameter, varying in thickness according to the 

 number of years it has been in use, and lined with grass, weeds, vines, 

 etc. Trees rather than cliffs are preferred as nesting sites. 



The eggs, which are usually two, rarely three in number, are whit- 

 ish, soiled, and measure about 2.90 by 2.25 inches. 



