(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
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Tags:
eagles, wildlife refuge, eagle cam, eaglets, 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

 

Technical Update

First, an update on the state of the cam. We’re not sure if our power problem is back, but our cam technician hopes to go out later today (after church) to check on the equipment. We have some time to troubleshoot the problem now that we’re still several weeks from any possible egg laying, but we need to figure out why our solar panel seems to be malfunctioning on random occasions. At some point we might have to order a new panel, although we had hoped to avoid that as they are rather expensive. Latest Update: We’ve got the cam running again, but we’ll be keeping an eye on it.

Immature Eagles

We had some excitement this past week when at least two different immature bald eagles spent some time on the Eagle Cam nest. We can’t be sure if either of the birds were former cam eaglets, but naturally we like to think that they might have been — and that is certainly a possibility.

The older bird (with the white coloring) appeared to be about 3 years old and the more brownish bird appeared to be about a year old. Immature bald eagles don’t reach breeding age until they’re about 4 to 5 years old, and that is when they exhibit a completely white head and tail.

To help you visualize how a brown bald eagle morphs into a white-headed bald eagle, here is a photo from our friend Woody Dawson showing an immature eagle that is about 3-1/2 years old. You can see from this beautiful photo that the juvenile is getting close to having a completely white head and tail — which are the surest signs of a mature bald eagle.

I wanted to point out one other set of photos from the recent Gallery update — in these photos we can see another example of bonding from our eagle couple. In the first shot you can see the one eagle is rubbing the back of the other eagle. This is another type of pre-nesting behavior that the couple uses to cement the bond that they will need over the next few months as they attempt to raise another generation of eaglets.

It might seem strange to think of birds bonding, but it’s important to remember that once the female produces the eggs, she will be relying on the male to be a strong defender of the nest and to be a good provider. She will also be relying on him to occasionally incubate the eggs so she can take a break. As for the male, he will be relying on the female to be a reliable mother and a loyal mate, and occasionally do her part to hunt for food and protect the nest from intruders. So the couple really are making a commitment to one another as they begin nesting season, and both of them will have to perform the duties of a responsible partner if they are to produce a healthy and viable family for the new year.

Interesting Photos

I have a couple interesting non-cam photos to share in this blog entry. First, Susan Feldhuhn — a cam watcher and volunteer with Tri-State Bird Rescue — alerted me to an amusing eagle story that was posted on Marie Winn’s blog. If you don’t already know, Marie Winn was the author of the famous hawk book Red-tails in Love: Pale Male’s Story - A True Wildlife Drama in Central Park [Note: if you haven’t read the book, run out and buy it tomorrow.]

Marie Winn’s blog often has interesting information about the birds in Central Park in New York City, but she also sometimes shares bird photos and stories that are sent to her from around the country. In this blog post, she shares a letter from a woman in California who was having issues with a local bald eagle nest. Read down to the bottom of the post to find out what the eaglets are doing in the photos that Marie has posted. Amazingly enough, the photos show fledglings from an Ohio nest that were actually using a backyard trampoline to practice their flapping. It’s really funny to think of the eaglets taking turns jumping up and down so they could improve their flapping skills.

In our next interesting photo, Aline — who is one of our cam watchers from Quebec, Canada — passed along this beautiful photo she took of the snow geese migration in her home area. Aline was kind enough to point out some other interesting tidbits about the photo. The mountain in the background is Mont-Sainte-Anne, which hosts a famous ski resort. And at the bottom of the mountain you can see a long building — this is Grosse Île (or Grosse Island) and the Irish Memorial National Historic Site of Canada.

This island served as a main port of arrival for immigrants to Canada and as a quarantine station for the Port of Quebec. And the Irish Memorial National Historic Site is a tribute to the importance that immigration has played in Canada’s history and is also a remembrance of the tragic experience that many Irish immigrants endured during the Great Irish Famine, which reached a climax in 1847. During that time, many immigrants fled Ireland due to the famine but then later died of typhus on Grosse Île, which then became the largest Irish famine burial ground located outside of Ireland. Thanks to Aline for sharing this insight into an important part of Canada’s history.

Nest Reminder

Just another reminder for those who are just joining us — based on the previous years of watching the Eagle Cam, we hope to see the first egg sometime around late January. Once the female begins laying eggs, we might see as many as three eggs total, but we’ll more likely see two. There is a small chance that we won’t see any eggs, as sometimes eagles go through the nesting preparations but don’t lay any eggs, or sometimes physical problems might prevent the female from producing eggs, but so far we’re feeling hopeful that we’ll see another batch of eaglets this year.

Thanks again for joining us for another season, and thanks for sending in your photos.

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
Contact

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