Well, as many of our cam watchers know, we had previously been worried about the small amount of food that the father eagle had been bringing to the nest while the parents were incubating the eggs. Today the father eagle did not bring a meal to the nest, despite the fact that the mother and new chick were counting on him to do so. The mother eagle appeared to do most of the incubating — although it’s possible the father did perform that duty some of the time, because he has shown that he will sit on the nest with the eggs. But beyond that, he was not at the nest much.

The mother eagle fed our new chick some pieces from the leftover item in the nest (what we think was possibly a small mammal), but clearly the mother needs the father eagle to be the provider right now, and it’s still a mystery why the father is not hunting more. We could guess that the father is not healthy or has some kind of physical problem, but we did see him bring a fish to the nest not that long ago, and he’s obviously feeding himself, so we gather he is capable of hunting.

The main problem now is that the mother cannot do both the nest-sitting and the hunting, mainly because eaglets cannot control their own body temperatures for the first few weeks of life. So while the mother is capable of hunting, she would need the father to sit on the chick and egg while she is gone.

So the mother has a few options: 1) She can wait and hope the father starts hunting; 2) She can try to get the father to sit on the nest, and then go hunting herself; 3) She can try to use her bigger size and bully the father into doing more of his job. We do know from a story our ranger told me that during incubation a few weeks ago, he saw the mother eagle leave the Eagle Cam nest and go harass the father, who was perched at the Osprey Cam nest. The result was he returned to the Eagle Cam nest and began incubating.

Mother eagles harassing males into performing their nest duties is not uncommon. Canadian biologists saw a female eagle calling and calling to a male who would not return to the nest. Eventually she flew at him, and using her bigger size, almost knocked him off his perch. He then went back to the nest and took over incubation.

So for now, we’ll just have to wait and see what unfolds between the couple. Some cam watchers have asked if we would intervene, and right now the answer is no. We normally try to treat the cam nest as if it was just any other nest where nature would take its course. In the end, the mother eagle may learn the hard lesson that she has selected a less than desirable mate.

I know cam watchers have asked us if this is the same male as previous years, and based on this performance, I would suspect he is not. We can never know for sure because our birds are not banded or marked in any way, but our previous male was a good provider the majority of the time, and did not show this kind of unwillingness to work at hunting for the family.

I did want to point out one other item that I know bothered a lot of cam watchers, and that was when the mother left for a brief period and it appeared the chick or the egg went missing. An eagle parent will sometimes put grass over the chicks or eggs when they leave the nest; this not only helps to keep them warm, it also makes them less visible to any predators that might be flying over the nest.

Right before the mother settled down tonight, we thought we might have seen a crack in the second egg. We can’t confirm if the second chick has hatched, so we might have to wait until morning to see what unfolds.

We know it’s distressing and frustrating for our cam watchers to see the father letting his family down — and we don’t enjoy seeing it either — but nature can be a hard place, and while the cams are a very enjoyable and educational window into nature, sometimes what we see is not always pleasant.

I want to thank everyone for the photos they’ve sent in. Over the next few days, I’ll try to get them organized so we can do a Gallery update.

Until next time,
Lisa – webmaster
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eagles, wildlife refuge, eagle cam, eaglet, Blackwater Refuge, Maryland