The golden eagle

The golden eagle is largest eagle and one of the most famous birds of prey of the hawk family.  It’s a common bird in Kazakhstan, which lives mostly in the mountains and rarely on the open and semi-open plains. The golden eagle avoids populated areas and it  is sensitive to human anxiety. In most of its area, the golden eagle lives sedentarily, in pairs near the nest. On the northern periphery of the distribution area, and in the highlands part of the birds splits off to less snow areas. It hunts a wide variety of game weighing between 0.4 and 5 kg, most commonly hares, rodents and many species of birds, and eats carrion. This bird occasionally attacks lambs and young reindeer, or sick and wounded larger animals. It makes the nest on a tree or on a hard-to-reach rocky ledge. Usually there are two eggs in the nest, but only one chick survives most of the time. In Central Asia, golden eagles are used to target foxes, hares, sometimes wolves and jeyrans.

Its wingspan reaches up to 225 cm, weight – up to 6 kg. The coloration of the plumage is brown, the head and neck are decorated with golden pointed feathers. Young birds have white base of the tail and the feathers, but the white color disappears as the birds get older. Golden eagles become adults by the fourth year of their life, and before that, young birds simply travel, and they can be found almost all over Kazakhstan.