Friday, March 31, 2006

Friday Afternoon Picture


Nap time. The Adult is perched just of camera above the nest.

More Nice Weather 3/31

Another nice warm day, and that really brings out the activity. The oldest eaglet continues to grow like a weed, and even the youngest is starting to get bigger, to the point where we got a great look at its face this morning on our closed circuit view.

Also looks like there are extra sticks added to build up the edge of the nest to keep the eaglets from accidentally falling out, especially the oldest who is moving around the nest a fair amount.

Karen Lindsey, our land manager notes that it seems that the male adult is taking extra care to make sure the middle and youngest eaglet are getting fed, which is a good sign that we might beat that 50 % mortality rate. Still have a ways to go though, so we'll keep our fingers crossed.

Thanks to those who are sending there own screen shots to us. If you want to send one, send it to nctc_eaglecam@fws.gov

Also, the link to the blog is now up on the eaglecam website, so welcome to those who have linked over from the eaglecam.

We'll post a picture later.

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Thursday Afternoon Report 3/30


Here's a great shot of all five eagles in the nest just after 3:00 PM EST today. It's a warm 67 degrees right now. Note the three eaglet sizes, oldest top right, middle top left and youngest bottom left.


Update: You might have noticed a dark spot above the left eye on the female eagle. This mark showed up several days ago, and speculation as to its cause is varied. One explanation is that it could be an injury incurred while the female was defending the nesting territory against an intruder. There has been a third adult bald eagle occasionally seen in the area over the past two weeks. A few folks did witness one of the parents chasing the intruder from the area near the nest tree. Most defense techniques include perching near the nest where all other birds can see the adult, threat vocalizations, and sometimes chasing. If our female did chase the intruder, she could have caught the tip of a talon on her head. The mark does not appear to be getting larger, and is probably just a spot missing a few feathers.

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Wednesday 3/29


It's been a very active day for the oldest eaglet, who has been crawling around the entire nest under the watchful eyes of the adults. Eaglet three is also looking bigger, which is a good sign that some food is getting his/her way. A big fish was just delivered to the nest by the female adult, and as you can see it is meal time again...

We will get the blog address up on the eaglecam site soon. Takes a lot longer to post things there, thus the reason we started the blog here on blogger.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Tuesday's Observations


It's been a good day for our eagles. A few observations:

The adults have spent significantly less time sitting on the eaglets today. In fact, as we write (3:30 EST), the adults are out of the nest, leaving the eaglets to sleep. What you can't see on the eagle cam and we can see from our window, is that one of the adults is always perched ten feet or so above the nest.

The youngest eaglet is really there and doing ok, at least right now. The adults have figured that if they stuff the oldest and most aggressive eaglet until it is so full it can't move, it cannot interfere with the feeding of the other two siblings. that's what they did this afternoon.

Remember that mortality rates among eaglets is 50%, so we have a ways to go to have three healthy birds.

Thanks for your continued comments and calls.

Monday, March 27, 2006

Bright Sunny Monday




Here's a picture of the whole family, although I'm having a real hard time spotting that youngest eaglet. Has anyone seen it recently?

Saturday, March 25, 2006

Saturday

The temperatures have remained below normal. Note the new grass in the nest that the adults have been bringing in to keep the eaglets warm. Cold front scheduled to come through today, so the weather will remain cool for a few more days at least.

We'll be watching the cam over the weekend and will post more later.

Friday, March 24, 2006

Other Eagle Cams

Thought folks might be interested in two other eagle cams they can access.

First is at Blackwater NWR, on the eastern shore of Maryland.

Second is from Northeast Utilities up in Massachusetts. They're watching a nest on the Quabbin Reservior.

Discovery also has a neat site where scottish biologists train a golden eagle to fly with a video camera. Very cool video you can download.

All three of our eaglets seem fine and hungry today.

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Thursday Afternoon 3/23

A Windy and Cold Thursday and Three Eaglets

3/23

We can confirm that the third egg hatched. We just watched carefully on our closed circuit when both adults were active and there are three eaglets.

Should be interesting to watch the dynamics in the nest over the next several days. The third eaglet is much smaller than the other two, and it will be a challenge for him/her.

We have gotten requests for an email address where folks can send eagle cam photos--we will have a mailbox set up shortly and will give you the address, hopefully later today.

Update: We have set up the mail drop-box for messages and eaglecam photos you grab and want to send. The address is: nctc_eaglecam@fws.gov

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Update 3/22

West Virginia Public broadcasting did their second story on the eagle cam this morning. Thanks to them for helping us get the word out so more folks can check in on the NCTC eagles.


Update 12:10 EST:

We just pulled down the last post on three eaglets as it appears to be premature.
An eagle cam viewer sent us a picture from a few hours ago that looked an awful lot like three eaglets, but when we looked carefully on our closed circuit (real time video) view of the nest, we decided that the third one had not yet hatched. It can be difficult to see well on the eagle cam when the eaglets are so small.

More on this later, hopefully we'll see that third one hatch soon.

Monday, March 20, 2006

One Hatched, Two to Go

We had our first egg hatch on Saturday. It's been a fun ride here at NCTC watching the adults feeding the first chick on our closed circuit connection.

A bit of excitement today when another adult bald eagle showed up on the nest tree while the male was watching the nest. He became very agitated and called for the female, who hustled back in time for the male to chase the intruder off. Not sure who the visitor was, perhaps one of the kids from two years ago?

3/18/24. Different days, same results.

   5:54 am Scout arrives but Bella is not ready to change out. After a bit of poking around the nest, looks like both decided to go back to ...