Our eaglets are growing rapidly, and it looks like they now have their second coat of darker, heavier down. We also see that the eaglets are able to sit up more and move around a bit. In fact, our younger eaglet moved so much the other day that I got a ton of emails asking if it had left the nest! Fortunately, the eaglet had just moved to the far bottom of the nest (near the trunk of the tree) and out of our view. The eagle parents seem to like perching in that area occasionally, and that may be why the chicks sometimes wander down there as well.

As for the eaglets, we see that they’re more comfortable at being uncovered in the nest. The mother eagle only seems to cover them when it rains or when the temperature is very cool in the early morning or evening. Otherwise, the eaglets are left uncovered, but we suspect one of the parents is sitting in the tree watching them, even if we can’t see them on the cam. Once the eaglets are big enough to be safe from predators, the mother eagle will be able to leave the area for longer periods and possibly do more hunting. We hope that will increase the food supply.

As for the father, we have no idea what he does with his time since we see so little of him. As we noted on Thursday, he did show up on that particular day with a fish or two, which was the most we’ve seen from him in a while. He seems to like spending time perching on the Osprey Cam nest, but other than that, he is only visible for brief periods during the day. We hope he is defending the nest area from intruders or sharing in the eaglet-watching duties.

Cam watchers have asked if this is our same pair from last year. Again, we don’t really think so based on their performance. It’s possible one of the pair died during the off season, and the other mate had to find a new partner. Or it’s possible something happened to both our eagles, and this is a completely new pair. Eagles are normally very loyal to a successful nest (which this one is) so we think if our former pair could have returned, they would have.

It is possible this is a new male, which would account for his lackluster performance. Maybe he’s just inexperienced at the responsibilities necessary for being a father — the main one being bringing in enough food for the eaglets and the mother during these early weeks of nesting. But we can be optimistic and say that at least the eaglets seem to be getting enough food to grow, and we hope as the mother becomes less tied to the nest, she might be able to roam farther in search of food, and that will increase the quantity of fish and fowl that we see.

Big Yellow Talons

One of the most noticeable traits on the eaglets now is their big yellow talons or feet. Beaks and talons grow fastest on young bald eaglets, and by about mid April, their beaks and talons will be close to adult size. Biologists speculate that this helps the eaglets because the full-size beak aids them in feeding themselves and the full-size feet help them hold on tightly to the nest when they’re moving around their home during windy weather or when flapping their wings in practice for eventual flight.

The eagle’s talons are comprised of four powerful toes that can break through tough fish skin or animal skin and then hold tight while carrying the prey home. These talons are similar to the osprey’s in that they both have tiny spicules on the toes (spicules are little bumps that help the raptors hold onto slippery fish). But the osprey has one advantage that the eagle does not have — an opposable toe. One of the osprey’s front toes can rotate backwards so that two toes are holding the fish from the back and two from the front. An eagle can only hold the fish with one back toe (called the hallux). This means an osprey has an easier time holding onto a thrashing fish.

Something else worth noting about the bald eagle’s feet is that the feathers do not go all the way down the leg (called the tarsus), unlike a golden eagle, which has a fully feathered leg. The reason for the difference is that the bald eagle’s primary diet is fish, whereas the golden eagle’s diet is primarily birds and small mammals. The bald eagle’s lower body often gets wet during fishing, so in order for its legs to dry faster and to reduce drag in the water, the legs, or tarsi, are bare of feathers.

Check out this graphic to learn more about the legs and talons of a bald eagle.

Osprey Update

For those who have been watching our trials and tribulations at the Osprey Cam, this is what we know: the fish in the Blackwater River (which is where most of the Refuge raptors fish) should have plenty of gizzard shad and catfish for our local birds. Also, from what our local experts believe, the owl and eagle that we’ve seen perched on the platform at different times would not likely prevent the ospreys from nesting at the platform.

In the past seven years of our Osprey Cam, whenever an osprey pair showed any intention to nest at the platform, the eagles vanished, so we don’t think a periodic eagle perched there is discouraging them if they really wanted the nest. The Great horned owl can be a predator of osprey chicks, but we’ve been told it is not likely the bird is discouraging the ospreys from nesting at the platform.

In the past, the ospreys have had great success at the Osprey Cam nest up until last year. As our old-timers know, 2007 was the first time in seven years of being online that we did not have chicks at the Osprey Cam nest. An intruder female osprey managed to disrupt the family structure, and our father went missing (possibly tempted by the new female), leaving the resident female on three eggs. She stayed with them as long as she could, but eventually had to get food, and while she was gone, a crow came in and punctured all three, thus ending our season.

When an eagle or osprey couple fail at producing a brood, they will sometimes change nests or partners, so it is possible our pair separated or chose not to nest again at the platform for that reason. Despite this, the Osprey Cam nest is a wonderful nesting location. It’s safe from land predators, it’s high and open (like ospreys prefer), and it’s right in front of the river, so we hope that another pair will take it, since we have a lot of ospreys arriving at the Refuge now for nesting season.

If you’d like to see what’s around the Osprey Cam, check out this web log entry I posted back in 2006. Scroll down the page a bit and you’ll see the 360-degree virtual reality Quicktime movie I put together that allows cam watchers to see what’s around the cam including the Blackwater River and the water impoundment areas that surround the nest. This movie also gives you a good idea as to the beautiful habitat that you can see if you visit our Wildlife Drive at the Refuge.

Eagle Audio

Finally, I did want to point out one more new video at the NCTC Eagle Cam blog. They have sound on their cam, and in the clip on this page you can hear not only the adults calling but also the three growing eaglets and their more developed whistles. It’s really a treat to hear the audio.

We’ll try to update the Gallery soon, and I just received a couple more videotapes from the Eagle Cam, so I’ll try to edit them and post some new YouTube videos within the next few days.

Until next time,

Lisa - webmaster
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eagles, wildlife refuge, eagle cam, eaglets, Blackwater Refuge, Maryland

 

(1st chick: 20 days old; 2nd chick: 19 days old)

Well, after singing the praises of our father eagle in the last post, the male has slipped into his erratic food delivery schedule again, and consequently food has not been abundant in the nest. After a couple days of not seeing any new meals brought in, the mother produced a decent-sized bird, only to have the father bring in this small contribution. We’re not sure where he finds such tiny fish, but it actually looked smaller than the eaglets.

We did see a good-sized fish brought in early Sunday morning, and we’re not sure who brought it, but since the father eagle appeared in the image, we’ll be optimistic and pretend dad brought it. :-)

The lack of food is putting some stress on the younger eaglet, as we’re seeing submissive behavior from the younger chick and some bullying behavior by the older eaglet, who is doing what all older eaglets do when food is short — making sure it gets the most food.

We’ve seen images where the younger chick appears submissive during meal time — such as staying down and in the back while the parent is feeding. Also we’ve seen the familiar submissive posture where the younger eaglet puts its head down and away from the older chick, usually as a result of pecking from the elder eaglet.

These are normal behaviors in a nest where the food is light and the two chicks are playing the game of “every eaglet for itself,” but we had hoped to see less of this since Blackwater appears to have enough food for a two-eaglet family.

Several cam watchers have asked if the eaglets could feed themselves. While we have seen shots showing what looked like eaglets pecking at the food, it’s not likely they can tear off meat at this stage. Duck and fish can be very tough to tear apart, and the eaglets need to be bigger and stronger before they can tear off meat for themselves. Once the eaglets are bigger, we’ll see the parents just drop food into the nest and let the eaglets “go at it,” but at this stage in their lives, they need a parent to do a lot of the tearing for them.

We did see one exciting thing this past week, and that was an eaglet clearly flapping its wings. We’ll see more of this activity in the weeks to come, but it’s good to see the eaglets beginning to exercise their wings in preparation for the day when they become mighty fliers like their parents.

Speaking of the eaglets, you might have noticed I’ve tried to avoid calling either of them “him” or “her” because we aren’t sure about their sex just yet. While it is true that female bald eagles are larger than the males, at this age in an eaglet’s life, size is related more to order of birth, so we can’t really guess the gender of our eaglets at this point. However, when they are older — around the time they get ready to fledge — we should be able to guess their gender by their comparative size.

Last year, our two eaglets — Justice and Majesty — exhibited this difference, as you can see in the image to the right. Justice, on the left, was definitely larger and appeared to be a female, and Majesty appeared to be a male.

As for our eaglets this year, we can speculate that the first chick might be a female. The reason for this is in the book The Bald Eagle: Haunts and Habits of a Wilderness Monarch, Canadian eagle biologist Dr. Gary Bortolotti offers evidence of a sex bias based on observations that he collected while studying 37 eaglet broods around Besnard Lake in Saskatchewan, Canada. He reports, “Even though there was an overall nestling sex ratio of one to one, the order in which the sexes hatched was not random; 63% of first-hatched eggs were females, and 68% of second-hatched eggs were males. A sex bias in hatching sequence has only recently been discovered in birds.” The reasoning they offered for this was that because male eaglets develop faster in the nest, having the female born first would reduce the competitive advantage of the faster-growing male.

So we’ll be keeping an eye on our eaglets’ growth, and after they develop their feathers we’ll likely have a better idea as to their gender.

Also, now that we have chicks, several cam watchers have asked if we will hold our annual Eaglet Naming Contest this year. The answer is yes, and we’ll be announcing the start of that when the eaglets get a little bigger. For those who are new to our website, normally we allow folks to enter a name for each eaglet, then judges pick the winners, and the winners get a prize from our Refuge gift store, as well as get recognized on our website.

Speaking of the contest, it just occurred to me that I don’t think I’ve mentioned WildCam.com this season. For those who are new to our cams, we have a partner in WildCam.com, which is based in Africa. We share our Eagle and Osprey Cam feeds with them, so if you ever have a problem accessing the Friends of Blackwater website, check out WildCam.com to find our cams there as well. You have to register, but it’s free, and they won’t share your email address with anyone.

Once the Eaglet Naming Contest begins, it will be hosted on the WildCam.com site, although we’ll obviously publicize it here and give folks instructions for entering their names at WildCam. So stay tuned for more info on the contest.

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
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Tags:
eagles, wildlife refuge, eagle cam, Blackwater Refuge, Maryland

 

(1st chick: 15 days old; 2nd chick: 14 days old)

We’re starting to see some changes in the family. First, the chicks are getting noticeably bigger, and they’re starting to spend more time sitting at their mother’s chest rather than under her — a sign that they’re more capable of keeping themselves warm. We also saw a few photos where the chicks were moving around the nest a good bit and not just staying stuck in the nest cup.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll see the eaglets get more adventurous about moving around their home, and we might even see them peeking over the edges of the nest to the ground below. This always makes our cam watchers very nervous, but the eaglets have enough sense of fear to know that they shouldn’t jump out of the nest or go crawling over the edge. I should point out that when the eaglets are skirting the edges, the eagle parents seem to be very aware of where their children are — if you look in the photo I posted, you see the mother eagle hovering nearby in case the eaglets get too curious about what’s over the edge. And we have seen photos of a parent herding a curious eaglet back to the middle of the nest after it was too close to the edge.

The next visible sign of development that we’ll be looking for on the eaglets’ bodies is their second coat of down. The eaglets come out of the shell with a covering of light-colored gray down, but after several weeks of age, they develop a darker, heavier, woolier coat of down, which is their last coat of down before their feathers appear. This photo offers a good example of the darker second coat. In this shot you can also see the big yellow feet that will become more noticeable on our cam image as the eaglets continue to grow.

A couple weeks after the dark, wooly down has developed, the feathers will slowly start to emerge — in fact if you look closely at the photo I posted above, you can see several feather shafts starting to appear on the right wing of the eaglet. These “blood feathers” are protected by a shaft and fed by blood until the feathers are fully formed. Once the feathers are fully out, they will appear as dark sections on the eaglet’s body, with the feathers growing more rapidly on the shoulders, back and the wings.

At around four to six weeks of age, the eaglet may be sporting bits of the first two downy stages as well as new feathers. Often the head of the eaglet is the last place where the light-gray down disappears, so the eaglet can look rather funny with light-colored fluff on its head, dark gray on its body, and blackish feathers just starting to come in. In this photo you can see an example of eaglets sporting all three coverings at the same time. But eventually, all the down will disappear from view and the eaglet will develop its first set of juvenile feathers, which will be mostly dark brown with some white patches. We’ll talk more about the all-important eagle feathers in a future entry.

Our Improving Father

As our cam watchers know, we’ve been waiting for our eagle father to get into gear with his fishing now that he has a growing family, and I think that event might have occurred. We’ve started seeing more fish in the nest as of late, and the chicks seem to be getting more regular meals. And the other day, we noticed a male eagle had just brought a freshly caught fish to the osprey platform, and we wondered if it was our eagle father from the Eagle Cam, and if so, would he bother to bring the meal home to his family. Sure enough, after eating some of the head (a common behavior for eagle fathers), the male eagle delivered the fish to his family at the Eagle Cam. And if this wasn’t impressive enough, we’ve also caught a couple occasions where he’s been helping the mother feed the eaglets.

So right now we’re pleased with how our eagle father is stepping up and doing his part to help the family and not putting so much of the fishing/hunting duties on the mother.

Technical Question

I’ve been getting a few emails asking us if the Blackwater Eagle Cam will ever go to streaming video, so I wanted to provide an answer here. The Blackwater cams get a lot of traffic, which we are always proud of, but it would be very expensive for us to offer streaming video on our site with our traffic load. Some websites take on corporate sponsors or get a commercial entity to host and run the cam to help pay for the costs. Also, some cams limit the number of people who can view the cam or limit how long they can watch in order to keep the cost of streaming down. This is something the Friends of Blackwater have chosen not to do. We prefer to make our cams non-commercial and open to anyone who wants to watch them — for as long as they want to watch them. So at this time, we do not have plans to go to streaming video.

I also wanted to point out that we keep the refresh times on the Eagle Cam and Osprey Cam at the times you see because we are limited in how many images we can upload using our satellite dish. Our dish provider will turn us off if we exceed a certain limit each month, so that is why we keep one cam at 30 seconds and the other at 45 or 60 seconds. I should point out that this has nothing to do with how many people are watching — it has to do with how many unique images we send from the field up to our website each minute.

Other Eagle News

A big congratulations to the folks at the NCTC Eagle Cam in West Virginia. They now have three healthy eaglets and a father that appears to be more than up to the challenge of feeding such a large family.

Also, we heard some good news from the Norfolk Eagle Cam — the eagle pair there have started laying a second clutch after the intruder female caused them to abandon their previous clutch.

If you have some time, be sure to also check out the eaglets at the Florida Eagle Cam — these birds are getting very big and are starting to exercise their wings. This will give you an idea as to what our birds will look like in a couple of months.

Osprey Cam

We haven’t seen another sighting of an osprey on the platform since last week, so we suspect the osprey we did see might have just been a visitor. Right now ospreys are moving up the East Coast to places as far north as New England and Canada, so some ospreys we see at Blackwater will nest here, and some are just stopping to rest and feed before they head farther north. In case you missed my posting on the cam page, be sure to check out Bob Quinn’s new photos — he provides a lot of great shots showing ospreys playing around the Refuge.

I should also point out the eagle you see at the end of Bob’s photos on that page — Bob said that eagle flew from the trees to the platform after it got a little nervous about Bob being around. There is a possibility that is our Eagle Cam father because we know he likes to perch on the Osprey Cam nest when no ospreys are around.

Special Treat

Finally, I wanted to offer some Alaskan eagle photos as a special treat. These were loaned to me by photographer Frank Severance, and he took these amazing shots in Haines, Alaska. In the first shot we see an adult and an immature bald eagle sitting in a tree together. In the second shot, we see an adult bald eagle snatching a fish out of the water. And in the final shot, we see a wild looking battle between an aggressive immature bald eagle and an adult. Much thanks to Frank for sharing these wonderful photos. Click on the thumbnails for larger versions.

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
Contact

Tags:
eagles, wildlife refuge, eagle cam, eaglets, Blackwater Refuge, Maryland