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First Flights of a Young Golden Eagle

Loye Miller

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Miss F. E. Schuman, a student in my biology classes, in whom I have the greatest confidence, reported to me an observation that was of such interest that I asked her to write the facts down for publication. I offer them to CONDOR readers at face value.

“Last summer while my father and I were extracting honey at the apiary about a mile southeast of Thacher School, Ojai, California, we noticed a golden eagle teaching its young one to fly. It was about ten o'clock. The mother started from the nest in the crags and, roughly handling the young one, she allowed him to drop, I should say, about ninety feet, then she would swoop down under him, wings spread, and he would alight on her back. She would soar to the top of the range with him and repeat the process. One time she waited perhaps fifteen minutes between flights. I should say the farthest she let him fall was 150 feet.

“My father and I watched this, spellbound, for over an hour. I do not know whether the young one gained confidence by this method or not. A few days later father and I rode to the cliff and out on Overhanging Rock. The eagles’ nest was empty.“

If not a School of the Woods this would seem at least to be a School of Aviation!

State Normal School, Los Angeles, California, September 23, 1918

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