(1st chick: 10 days old; 2nd chick: 9 days old)

A few items to discuss, so I thought I’d do another blog update.

First, I know folks have been worried about the long time the parents have been off the chicks. We did have mild weather yesterday and the sun was out, so we gather the mother eagle thought she could be off them more. We need to remember the mother has been largely responsible for the chicks, and she needs to feed herself because there hasn’t been a lot of food in the nest, so it’s possible she spent time doing that yesterday. We don’t know if the father was around (out of our view) watching the eaglets, but we hope so. I did see a parent on the nest this morning feeding the chicks twice with what looked like a new fish, so that was good to see.

I also know some folks think we’ve been too hard on our eagle father, but yesterday the NCTC Eagle Cam in West Virginia got their first eaglet, and look what was waiting in the nest for this tiny bird. This is the quantity of food that has greeted our eaglets in past seasons at our Blackwater Eagle Cam. In fact, as soon as an eaglet appeared, our previous father went fishing or hunting, sometimes having two fish or a fish and a duck in the nest together. So we naturally expected this type of behavior from our current father.

I think one of our cam watchers summed it up best the other day when she labeled our eaglets “The Hardy Chicks.” They’ve had to make do with the food available and they’ve also been on their own quite a bit. But they seem to be hanging in there and growing, so they are indeed “hardy” little raptors.

One final note about the eaglets — several folks have asked about their current size. At birth, bald eaglets are about 4-5 inches, and since they are now approaching two weeks old and have obviously grown some, I can speculate they’re pushing about 6 inches, but that’s just an educated guess.

Osprey Return

We did get to see our first osprey on the nest on Thursday! The bird (possibly a female) was around for a little while, but then an eagle appeared on the nest late in the afternoon; this possibly means no osprey is yet claiming the nest as their own, because when that happens, the eagles usually leave for good. While eagles might steal an osprey’s fish, they don’t seem to be willing to challenge the nesting ospreys for their home at the cam platform.

It’s possible our female has returned and she’s just waiting for her partner to show, so we’ll be keeping an eye out for a shot showing two ospreys on the nest together. And for those who are new to observing ospreys — or fish hawks — it is a bit easier to discern the sex of the individual birds. Osprey males often have a white chest, while females often have a “necklace” or brown coloring on their chests. Here you can see a clear example of a female with a noticeable necklace, although I should point out that sometimes females have a very faint necklace that is hard to see from a distance. Also, just like eagles, osprey females are bigger than the males.

We hear the commercial bucket truck is scheduled to come out Friday to adjust our cam, but again, if the truck operator has any kind of delay in his schedule, we might have to put off the visit. They are calling for a slight chance of rain Friday afternoon, and again, that would prevent the bucket truck from going up high into the air to service the pole. Whenever we have to arrange for the bucket truck, it’s a tricky affair because we have to coordinate schedules and gamble with the weather. It’s part of the reason why we don’t like having to get the truck out to the nest.

105th Anniversary of the National Wildlife Refuge System

I wanted to point out that today is a special day for wildlife refuge fans. Today marks the 105th Anniversary of the National Wildlife Refuge System — the only collection of federal lands in America where wildlife is supposed to come first. Blackwater NWR is one of the units in the Refuge System, having been formed back in 1933. This year is also the 75th Anniversary for Blackwater, and we’ll be honoring that event at our Eagle Festival on Saturday, March 15. All are welcome to join us that day.

The Refuge System was formed by President Teddy Roosevelt, when on March 14, 1903, he signed an executive order establishing Pelican Island (in Florida) as the first federal bird reservation. He went on to create a network of 55 bird reservation and national game preserves for wildlife, and these lands eventually became the National Wildlife Refuge System, which today includes 548 national wildlife refuges and 37 Wetland Management Districts (altogether equaling about 97 million acres), which is supported by over 200 Refuge Friends groups, like the Friends of Blackwater, who run the Blackwater cams that you enjoy. Each year the Refuge System hosts about 39 million visitors, who help contribute approximately $1.7 billion to local economies across America.

I’d like to end this web log entry with some words from Teddy Roosevelt — words which remind us why he is considered the greatest conservationist president America was lucky enough to have:

“We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources. But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil, and the gas are exhausted, when the soils have still further impoverished and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields and obstructing navigation.”

“I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us.”

“Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us.”

“Spring would not be spring without bird songs, any more than it would be spring without buds and flowers, and I only wish that besides protecting the songsters, the birds of the grove, the orchard, the garden and the meadow, we could also protect the birds of the sea-shore and of the wilderness.”

“Short-sighted men, in their greed and selfishness will, if permitted, rob our country of half its charm by their reckless extermination of all useful and beautiful wild things.”

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
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Tags:
eagles, wildlife refuge, eagle cam, Blackwater Refuge, Pelican Island, Teddy Roosevelt, National Wildlife Refuge System

 

As I mentioned on the cam page today, I’ve just uploaded six new videos to our Blackwater YouTube Channel. In this web log entry, I’m offering a few higher-quality copies of some of the more interesting videos from our YouTube channel and also offering some discussion about the family behavior on display.

As for the current standing at the nest, our father eagle has been erratic, to put it politely. The mother eagle has had to leave the chicks for long periods (especially in the morning) to go hunting. Sometimes the father returns to sit on the chicks, sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he helps feed them (usually with mom’s food), sometimes he doesn’t.

So at this point, we’re just happy that the eaglets seem to be hardy enough to withstand the cold when mom is gone. And we’re also happy that no predators have tried to visit the nest while she’s away. In all fairness to the father, it’s possible he’s sitting in the nest tree or in a nearby tree when the mother is gone — watching over the nest — but of course we can’t see that from our view. And it would definitely be better if he was sitting on the eaglets when it’s only 25 degrees out.

But enough about that, let’s go to the clips. In our first featured clip below, we see the mother eagle flies in with a fish. Both parents seem to be calling out during this video, and we’re not sure who or what they’re calling to, but it could be another bird that was interested in the fish. If you’d like to hear the sound the parents are probably making, listen to this audio file:

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While watching the cam feed at the Refuge, I noticed that one eaglet is a little bigger than the other, so there is a slight size difference. Also, the older eaglet was pecking the younger chick on the head a bit to establish its dominance in the nest (a very normal behavior). One interesting behavior I saw though was that the younger eaglet was also doing its share of pecking at the older bird. In fact, on the day the second chick hatched — when it could barely hold up its head — it was still trying to peck at its older sibling, often falling down in the process.

Pecking is an instinctual trait with eaglets, and seeing as how they do it almost straight out of the egg, you wonder if it might be nature’s way of helping to strengthen the eaglets’ necks so they can later tear up food to feed themselves.

In the second clip, we see some eaglet sibling rivalry on display. At first the older eaglet pecks at the younger bird to make the youngster keep its head down, then the two eaglets play tug-of-war with their beaks. Biologists state that normally parents do not interfere with sibling squabbles, but in this clip it seems that the parent tries to interrupt the pecking both times, and eventually stops the fighting altogether by ending the feeding session and sitting on them.

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In the third clip, we see a feeding session between one parent and the eaglets. The feeding sessions are touching in a way because you can see how patient the parent has to be while trying to feed little eaglets that keep looking around or falling over or dropping the food that the parent passes to them. Sometimes the piece of food is too big, and then the parent bites down on it to make it a bit smaller, and passes it off again. At this stage of their lives, the eaglets definitely require some patience.

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And for our final clip, we see a short look at how the mother eagle settles down for the night — first wiggling herself so she is comfortable over the eaglets, then tucking her beak into her feathers. Biologists state that birds tuck their beaks into their feathers to reduce heat loss during the night.

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We hope you enjoyed these videos — and the two extra videos on YouTube. We’ll try to capture some more shots as the eagles continue to grow and begin developing their all-important feathers.

And thanks again to all those who have been following our birds, watching our videos, emailing questions, and sending in their cam photos. We always appreciate the support our cams receive.

Eagle Cam Merchandise

I wanted to announce that our online Eagle’s Nest Gift Shop is now selling Eagle Cam t-shirts (for adults and kids) and is also selling a DVD video featuring highlights from last season’s nest — the nest with our youngsters Justice and Majesty. If you’d like to help us spread the word about the Blackwater Eagle Cams or if you’d like some souvenirs of our cam but you can’t attend the Eagle Festival on Saturday, this merchandise might be just the thing you’re looking for. So visit our cam store page and check out our new items. Also note that we’re offering a specially priced DVD/t-shirt combo that comes with a free Eagle Cam postcard.

And as a final reminder, all proceeds from our store go toward supporting projects at the Refuge, including our raptor cams.

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

 

Chick Scorecard

We’ll be updating our Gallery soon, but for those who missed it, here is a sequence of shots showing our second chick hatching on March 5. I also wanted to say that when we update the Gallery, we’ll be spreading the credits around for the photos, so you might not see your name on every photo you sent in. We’ll also be posting some videos of the chicks early next week, when we have a chance to edit and upload them.

For those who are keeping score, here is how our 2008 clutch played out this year:

1st egg laid: January 26
1st egg hatched: March 3
Days of incubation: 37 days

2nd egg laid: January 30
2nd egg hatched: March 5
Days of incubation: 35 days

The chicks were a little over a day apart in hatching, so this should give the oldest only a slight size advantage. We prefer that the chicks are close in size as it helps to decrease the bullying and aggressiveness that we might see from the oldest chick. The other thing that decreases the aggressiveness is plenty of food in the nest, so we hope the parents can keep the growing chicks well fed, otherwise we might see an increase in sibling competition as the chicks begin to require more food.

Tonight we saw the mother eagle trying to keep the eaglets dry during our rain storm. Lots of folks ask me if anything is wrong when they see the parent in this position, but this is very normal because this is how a parent looks when they’re doing their best to keep the chicks dry. By spreading out her wings, the mother can keep a larger area of the nest from getting too wet.

So far our parents seem to be sharing in the hunting activities somewhat, and that should work out all right as long as the father hangs around to watch the chicks while the mother eagle is hunting.

Our fish-challenged father might get a break soon. The Refuge ospreys should begin returning around mid March or so, and then dad can start targeting the fish hawks and steal their fish. As many eagle fans know, bald eagles are notorious for letting ospreys catch a meal only to take it away from them minutes later. This is a behavior that we’ll talk more about in the future, but the father eagle could use these fish-stealing skills to help him feed his family. Also, once the ospreys return, the eagles will give up the Osprey Cam platform, so dad won’t be able to hang out there anymore.

For the next few weeks, our eagle parents will be spending lots of time sitting on the chicks to keep them warm. Eventually the eaglets will be able to control their own body temperatures, which will mean the parents won’t have to spend as much time on them, and the chicks will be a little less dependent on the parents.

Eagle Festival

A big reminder: March 15 is our 8th Annual Eagle Festival. This is without a doubt the best time for eagle fans to visit Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. We will have guided Eagle Prowls, an early-morning bird walk, birds of prey, kids’ activities, food, the Eagle’s Nest Gift Store, plus you will be able to see live video of our two new eaglets on the TV monitors at our beautiful Visitor Center. Visit our Eagle Festival page for our schedule of activities. And please note that while all the events are free, some events do require that you call ahead and reserve a spot.

Other Eagle Nests

Lots of egg laying going on at other eagle cam nests around the country. The Massachusetts Eagle Cam now has three eggs and so does the Colorado cam nest. Also, someone alerted me to a nest in Oklahoma that has an amazing four eggs! Boy, talk about pressure on those parents. :-)

Also, remember that the NCTC Eagle Cam in West Virginia should have hatching soon with their three eggs.

Fun Stuff

I wanted to share a few fun things that several cam watchers have sent in. First, for all those eagle fans following the various nests on the Web, you might find this Eaglet Information Table helpful in keeping track of all the nest action.

Also, Jack Migliore, who is one of our cam watchers and a teacher in Salem County, New Jersey, has put together a wonderful nature movie called “Wings of Success,” which features some of his eagle photography. Note that this website will ask you to download/run the Move Media Player in order to see the movie, and downloading it is safe to do.

Next, photographer Tom Lorsung was kind enough to share a photo he recently took here at Blackwater Refuge. It shows two immature bald eagles fighting over perching rights on an unused osprey platform in the Blackwater River. Beautiful shot.

Also, Bob Quinn has notified me that he has new photos up in his online Gallery. The last batch of photos on this page shows our white pelicans — this would normally be an unusual species for the Refuge as they normally are found much further south, but over the last few years these pelicans have adopted the Refuge as their own. And just so you’re not alarmed — the smoke you see in the one photo is from a controlled burn on the Eastern Shore. Much thanks to Bob for a look at the current conditions at the Refuge.

And last but certainly not least, we have several new photos from photographer Jon McRay who was recently out at Blackwater. Below we see two shots of an eagle collecting nesting material in the marshy fields. In the third shot we get a wonderful look at an eagle landing on a popular snag at the Refuge. And in the final shot we see an amazing collection of snow geese at the Refuge. Click on the thumbnails below, and much thanks to Jon for these incredible shots.

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
Contact

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