Hopefully the last technical update: Some of our loyal cam watchers might have noticed that our website went down on Saturday night and briefly on Sunday. The hard drive on our new web server crashed, so they had to replace it. We’re now on a new server with a different hard drive, so we expect things to be better. But I can say the technical gremlins are really working us overtime this year. :-)

If you sent an email to our website during the downtime (Saturday night or Sunday), we might not have received it, so feel free to send it again. This would be the webmaster address (from the Contact form), not the blackwatercam address.

Blackwater YouTube Channel

We’re excited to announce that the Friends of Blackwater have just set up a YouTube video channel featuring videos from our 2008 Eagle Cam. The first four videos (Nesting 1 and 2, and Incubating 1 and 2) that you see on our new channel are videos that I have already posted here in my web log. But I have now added two new videos on the YouTube site (Incubating 3 and Incubating 4), which offer some funny footage of our parents putting sticks and grass on each other.

In the future, I will continue to post videos here in our web log, but I might also post extra videos on the YouTube site. Anytime I post new YouTube videos, I’ll mention it here. And remember that our YouTube channel will always have the complete collection of our videos for the season.

Although the videos on YouTube are compressed more than the videos we post here, it’s free for us to post videos on YouTube, so it’s a handy place for us to share our videos — especially the ones that are posted more for fun than education.

If you have a YouTube account, don’t forget that you can subscribe to our channel, as well as rate our videos and offer comments. And we’d appreciate you sharing the link with your family and friends.

Also, if you’re the kind of person who enjoys saving the videos you see on YouTube, you can use the free KeepVid service to download YouTube videos to your hard drive.

Blackwater Eagles

We had some excitement at our nest on Sunday afternoon. The mother eagle appeared to be highly agitated when a second bird (not likely the father) appeared in the left section of our cam image. This appeared to be an intruder of some sort, and our parent warned it off. We’ll be keeping an eye on the cam to see if the intruder returns, but so far the nest has been quiet.

I also wanted to point out that our father eagle brought in a large fish for the mother eagle on Monday. In past seasons, our father eagle has been very generous with food — often showering the mother eagle with fish and ducks when an egg or chick made an appearance, but this year our male is not doing too much of that, and we’ve wondered a few times if it’s the same male as the previous years.

I asked our ranger if there has been a drop in the fish supply because of our drought, but he reports that our fisheries expert is saying that the fish supply looks normal.

At this point it’s not such a big deal that the father is making mom go “shopping,” but we hope he picks up the pace once the chicks arrive. As a reminder, we’re looking for hatching around March 1 and then again around March 5.

What Will Hatching Look Like

In the past, we have had eggs hatch in the morning and also the late afternoon, so we’re not sure when it will take place for each of the eggs. For those who are new to our cam, here is a series of shots showing the first egg hatching in our 2004-2005 season. The camera was closer to the nest that year, so it’s easier to see the first small hole in the egg. (Just an FYI: We moved the camera higher the next season so it would be easier to see the eaglets as they grew bigger and started moving around).

When the eaglet is ready to hatch, it will turn itself inside the egg and pierce the egg’s air sac, then it will take its first breath of air from within the shell. Next the chick will use its neck muscles and egg tooth to pip or punch a small hole in the shell. The eaglet will continue to slowly turn and peck until it has cut a hole around the diameter of the shell so that it can push out the bottom half and free itself. This process is very tiring for the chick and can take 24 hours to complete since the young bird will frequently stop to rest. Once the eaglet is out, it will be wet and tired with its eyes closed, but it won’t be long before it dries off and is soon able to see and sit up.

Here you can see a photo of our first eaglet in the 2004-2005 season sitting up for the mother eagle and looking for food, even as its sibling is hatching right beside it.

As for our parents, they will hear the chick chirping and feel it moving inside the shell, so if the incubating parent is frequently moving off the eggs or is looking down at the eggs a lot, that would indicate that they feel or hear something. Biologists believe that eagle parents do not normally assist the eaglet during the hatching process even if the chick is having trouble breaking free.

Once the eaglet arrives, it will not have to be fed right away because before it hatches, it absorbs the yolk and uses that for early nourishment. So if we don’t see the parents feeding the eaglet right away, that doesn’t mean that the eaglet is hungry or being deprived of food. We will be watching though to see if our male eagle picks up the pace on his food deliveries once the chicks arrive.

Other Eagle Cams

Channel Island Egg:

In my last post, I provided a list of other eagle cams around the country, but I forgot to mention the cams in the Channel Islands in California. As it so happens, the Santa Cruz Eagle Cam just saw an egg laid on Sunday, so be sure to check out their cam.

Florida Audubon Eagle Cam:

Also, we’re hearing that the eaglets on the Florida Audubon Eagle Cam will be banded soon (possibly this week), and one will be outfitted with a satellite transmitter. These eaglets are getting very big and it should be interesting if cam watchers can see them banded and tagged. Once these eaglets leave the nest and begin migrating north for the summer, we will be able to follow the one with the transmitter. Often young Florida eagles come up to the Chesapeake Bay, so this eaglet might end up spending part of its summer near us.

Norfolk Eagle Cam:

As I mentioned on our cam page a couple days ago, Norfolk is now reporting that the old resident female has been seen with the old resident male — without the intruder female. This nest is turning into quite a soap opera, so I’m going to stop reporting on every event and just let our cam watchers follow the action for themselves from the Norfolk Eagle Cam page. Right now no one knows what will come of this season in Norfolk as it’s turning into a very unusual year, but if they’re lucky, maybe two of the birds will finally settle down and produce a healthy clutch. Naturally, I think most eagle fans are pulling for the original couple. :-)

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
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eagles, wildlife refuge, eagle cam, eagle eggs, eagle video, Blackwater Refuge, Maryland