(Eaglets eight weeks old)

As I mentioned on the cam page, we have picked the two winners for our 2008 Eaglet-Naming Contest. We have emailed the winners, but we haven’t heard back from both of them yet, so we’ll hold off announcing the names since we normally like to share a little personal info about our winners when we make the announcement. Thanks to all those who took the time to enter our contest and share their creative skills with us. We got a lot of great names.

As we noted earlier, we are hearing from staff and volunteers at the Refuge that the eaglets are tearing off food for themselves now, but we are still seeing shots showing the eaglets being fed by a parent. This could be a case where even if the eaglets can do it themselves, it’s just easier when mom does it.

Regarding the eaglets’ size, I’ve been watching the cam over the last week or so to see if we can tell the gender of our chicks now that they’re two months old. It appears to me that they both look about the same size, which seems to indicate we may have two of the same sex. In addition, I’ve been looking at how they compare to the female eagle (the bigger of the parents), and it appears that our eaglets are smaller than she is. We’ll never know for sure the gender of our two youngsters, but based on these images, we might hazard to guess that we have two males.

Branching Eaglets

The eaglets are now about eight weeks old, and it’s amazing how fast the time has flown and how big our youngsters have become. Bald eaglets normally fledge at 9-13 weeks of age, but before they take that first flight, they spend a good bit of time branching.

Branching is when the eaglets hop out onto the branches of their nest tree and perch there. This activity helps them develop their perching skills (remember they’ve been sitting in the nest all this time) and also gets them acclimated to maneuvering in and out of their nest and around the tree branches.

Our friend Woody Dawson, from up near Susquehanna State Park in Maryland, loaned me this animated GIF (975KB) that he made showing one of his local bald eaglets branching. Notice how the eaglet uses its wings to maneuver its talons along the branch. Once the eaglet is in a secure place on the branch, it will perch there and observe the world around its home nest.

We also have a branching video clip from our own cam. In this clip from last year, we see our eaglet Majesty flapping out to one of the branches under the web camera. Then later in the clip you see our other eaglet, Justice, flapping her wings and skipping along the nest — she was very close to flying at this point. Note that as a female bald eagle, her wingspan could have reached 6-7 feet.

5 MB

The loblolly pine tree that holds our web camera — and the eaglets’ home — has several branches for the eaglets to choose from. On our current camera view you can see one of the branches in the upper left corner. Also there is a big branch on the right and a third under (and to the left) of the cam — this is the branch Majesty used in the video clip.

We can’t move the camera (or zoom out) to see the branching, but I have asked our volunteers and staff at the Refuge to let us know if they see any branching from our live TV monitor at the Visitor Center. It’s easier to see the branching on live video because you can see the eaglets jumping in and out of the nest. I will be getting some new video from the Refuge soon, and I’ll be sure to share those clips here, but thus far we do not have any confirmed branching yet from our eaglets.

Thanks to everyone who has been sending in images for our Eagle Cam Gallery. We’ll post an update before the end of the week.

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

 

Happy Earth Day to everyone!

The first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970, by 20 million people across the country, and every year since then concerned citizens in America have tried to mark this day as a moment to raise awareness about our environment. If you’d like to read about how Senator Gaylord Nelson organized the first Earth Day back in 1970, visit the Wilderness Society website for more information.

In honor of this day, I thought it would be a good time to talk about the interesting relationship that exists between eagles and ospreys — the two wonderful raptors that we celebrate with our web cams. Eagle and osprey populations in the U.S. were not always as healthy as they are today. In the post World War II years, large amounts of the insecticide DDT were introduced into their environment, and the poison affected the ability of eagles and ospreys to reproduce successfully — much in the same way that DDT in the waters off California is affecting the reproductive success of eagles in the Channels Islands today. The eventual recovery of eagle and osprey populations was greatly helped by the environmental awareness that grew out of events like Earth Day and the publication of Rachel Carson’s seminal book Silent Spring. In fact, DDT was banned in America two years after the first Earth Day was held.

Eagles and Ospreys

Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge is fortunate in that it has a large population of both eagles and ospreys, so confrontations between the birds here is not uncommon. Often when the two raptor species tangle, the battle is about fish. Ospreys are considered perhaps the best anglers in nature, and while eagles are also skilled at catching fish, they are better known for being opportunists that will sometimes use their larger size and greater power to steal a fish from an osprey rather than catch it themselves.

The bald eagle’s propensity for theft is what gave it a less than noble reputation in the eyes of founding father Ben Franklin. In a letter to his daughter, Franklin voiced his objections about the eagle:

“For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.”

Biologists today are not as critical of the bald eagle and recognize this fish-stealing habit as an effective survival skill rather than a moral defect. And the eagle does often find success because despite efforts on the part of the osprey to keep its fish, many accounts of the birds’ battles end with the osprey being forced to drop its meal. But if the osprey puts up a fight, then you might see something more dramatic.

In the book The Bald Eagle: Haunts and Habits of a Wilderness Monarch, one of the authors describes an event on a Saskatchewan lake that showed a surprising twist to the usual skirmish:

“The eagle attacked from a few feet above and to one side of the Osprey — once, twice, and then a third time. On each pass the Osprey visibly flinched, for the eagle’s talons barely cleared its back. We anxiously awaited the outcome. Many observers had described how typically the Osprey drops its fish, and with surprising agility the Bald Eagle snatches the fallen prey in midair. We were not prepared for what happened. After three unsuccessful attacks, the eagle turned to brute force. This time coming up fast from behind and below, the eagle flipped onto its back, thrust its talons upward, and ripped the fish right out of the Osprey’s grasp. What a sight! After quickly righting itself, the eagle turned and flapped leisurely to deposit the booty on its nest.”

During the times when the osprey comes out on top, it’s often because it outsmarts the eagle. For example, sometimes osprey couples will team up to protect their food from the eagles. Our Blackwater ranger, Tom Miller, witnessed this when he saw an osprey fly toward an eagle to intercept it while the osprey’s partner quickly flew to the home nest with the fish.

In addition, ospreys can be even more aggressive if they’re protecting their young and their home nest. At Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge in Florida, local photographer Bob Montanaro captured this type of event on film as he watched a group of four ospreys drive off a group of immature bald eagles that were flying too close to the ospreys’ nests. Be sure to view these amazing photos where you can see the osprey aggressively flying at the immature eagle and making it clear that the ospreys will not tolerate the eagles in their territory.

At Blackwater, our ospreys at the Osprey Cam nest will react to bald eagles that are perched in the woods to the left of the nest. You can’t see these woods on the cam image, but it’s an area where eagles sometimes like to sit, and the close proximity to the osprey platform makes the ospreys agitated when an eagle is there.

A few years ago, I was at the Refuge with my video camera and was lucky enough to capture an episode showing the cam mother chasing off an eagle that was trying to perch in the trees near the cam. The first video below shows the eagle flying into the trees near our Osprey Cam nest and the other shows the mother consequently dive-bombing the eagle. In this instance, the mother did a good job of sending a strong message to the eagle, but it was somewhat risky for her to have to leave the chicks alone to do this. (Left-click on the Windows Media Video file links below to play, or right-click on the links and choose “Save Target As” to download to your computer):

Eagle Flyby (3.5MB)
Osprey Dive-bombing (2.5MB)

Just recently, photographer Bob Quinn was out at the Refuge and witnessed a similar episode between our Osprey Cam birds and an eagle that had been sitting in those trees. His photo (on the right) offers a dramatic glimpse at how these aerial battles look when a smaller raptor tries to take on a much bigger challenger.

Even with all the ospreys’ spunk and determination, there is no denying the fact that bald eagles are more powerful. A great example of this can be seen on a YouTube video I saw recently that shows a bald eagle taking a fish away from an osprey on Lake Merwin in Washington state. The speed with which the eagle overtakes the osprey is truly amazing to watch. The chirping you hear in the background is the osprey “yelling” at the eagle for stealing its meal. In such a situation, there’s not a lot the osprey can do but accept the fact that the eagle won this battle.

[A sidenote to teachers and parents — this video includes a slightly muffled profanity at the end by one of the observers in the video who got excited watching the scene, so just a little warning for the youngsters in our audience.]

Happy Earth Day!

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
Contact

Tags:
eagles, wildlife refuge, eagle cam, osprey cam, 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
Contact

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