getting ready for the Iron Bowl. We're at Jordan-Hare Stadium before anybody else is here

and we are going to practice with the Eagles. For every

Auburn game the eagle flies around and hits the field and everybody screams War Eagle, which is

pretty awesome, except that I'm an Alabama fan. But anyway, we're gonna

partner together on this academic endeavour and see what we can learn. Welcome to Smarter Every Day.

[music]

Alright, so we are here on the field

at Jordan-Hare Stadium with Marianne Hudson, and she is in charge

of Spirit and Nova, and she's gonna show us what she does before the game

and during the game. -That's right, we practice with these birds almost every day

here in the stadium so, a lot of folks don't realise that we spend a lot of time here in Jordan-Hare Stadium

so the birds are used to getting fed here. This is where they get their breakfast

almost every morning. So on game day, we bring the birds out here

the only difference is, there are 87000 people watching us, but for the

birds, it's just routine. (Destin) OK, so for the Ironbowl this is the dinner plate?

-That's right. What the bird knows is that every time he touches this lure he gets fed.

The other side again gives the date and the competitors,

and so when the bird touches this lure, he gets some food.

(Destin) So where do we put it? Do you put it out there and.. just drag it across? -That's right. What we do is

the bird looks for us, and he knows that either myself or my partner Roy

is gonna have this in our hands, and when he touches it he gets the food reward so

he's looking for us, and he's waiting for us to produce this, and we usually try to drop it

near the 50, cause that is our tradition.

[music]

OK one question I've alwas had is

what happens if the eagle just decides to leave the stadium? I mean that could happen right? They're

animals, they get to make their own mind up. Well, the people here at Auburn University

have thought about that. So what do you have here? -Every time we fly any of our birds

free, whether it's the smallest owl or the largest eagle, we clip

a telemetry unit to them. It's a tracking device. We have a receiver

that reads the signal from the transmitter when it's turned on. (Destin) What's he got here?

(Destin) So that's it huh? -And we have a seat for that transmitter permenantly

glued to the eagle's tail. (Male) There's the tail mount.

Little clips.. in there.

Secured, it's good to fly. (Destin) And can the bird even tell that it has the transmitter on?

Nope. It's very light weight. He doesn't know it's there. It's out of the

way in case he were to escape, and he wouldn't be tangled in anything.

(Destin) It's actually in the slipstream too so there's not a lot of drag in that position aerodynamically.

That's right so it just blends in with everything else, his general aerodynamic shape

and doesn't hinder him at all.

So now you know how to track your pet eagle.

Alright I'm here with Clay. We're in Jordan-Hare Stadium before the game. You can

see they're painting the lines for the Ironbowl. Check it out.

They're not the only people that have to get ready for the Ironbowl. Aah the bird..

The eagle slapped me.

I've been slapped several times by this eagle because I'm wearing

crimson and it doesn't like it. Roll tide.

-War eagle. Whatever.

I think if you really asked me about it, legitimately

that the tiger is our mascot, but we have

now obviously the golden eagle, which you know

it sends our team to victory, it's our rally cry. (Destin) I'm just gonna be honest with you

it makes no sense to me to carry an eagle around with a tiger on top of it. 60

That doesn't make sense man.

It's aah it worked all last season [laughs]

Bald eagle through the legs.

We tried to investigate how to get an elephant to fly around our stadium before the games but we couldn't get the

jet engines.. operation dumbo drop yeah..

we couldn't get Bear Bryant to figure it out for us.

Did your eagle just slap me?

Yeah you came to talk about Alabama.. in his stadium.

And you're wearing crimson.

[ Captions by Andrew Jackson ]

Captioning in different languages welcome. Please contact Destin if you can help.