Weather and Cam

I wanted to thank everyone for their patience as we were troubleshooting our image problem. Something with our satellite dish service suddenly changed, and we were struggling to alter our software so it could accommodate the new setup. We’ll keep an eye on it, but we hope the problem is solved.

Also, we’ve had our website moved to a new web server that should be able to handle our increase in traffic once the hatching starts, so hopefully this preemptive move will head off any technical trouble once we start seeing eaglets around March 1.

One final cam note, we’re expecting some messy weather (rain and snow) starting possibly tonight. The snow might accumulate a couple inches, but the weather should be better by Saturday. So far our parents have done a very good job of keeping the eggs dry, so they should be able to handle it, although you might see them looking pretty ragged in the rain and snow.

Norfolk Eagle Pair

I want to thank all those who kept me up-to-date on the drama at the Norfolk Eagle Cam website. I had been out of town over the weekend and missed some of the events.

Apparently there was a lot of confusion — even by the biologists — about what had been happening, but from what they now gather a young intruder female managed to drive the resident female away, and now the resident male seems to be bonding with the new female. This development led to the abandonment of the eggs, so the biologists received permission to go up and retrieve the eggs for study, which they did the other day. Now the new couple has been seen hanging out at the new nest, and it is hoped that they will lay their own clutch.

WVEC.com has posted photos of the eagle eggs that were taken from the nest. Be sure to check out these shots as they offer a rare opportunity to see bald eagle eggs up close.

Ken Scheibech, who is one of our cam watchers, was kind enough to tape the footage showing the biologists going up to retrieve the eggs. I should point out that the Norfolk Eagle Cam website had been reporting that the couple had three eggs, but the biologists found only two and no broken egg shells (possibly meaning there was never a third). I’ve taken the liberty of editing Ken’s movie down to a web-friendly size. Left-click on the link below to play the movie or right-click and choose “Save Link As” or “Save Target As” to download. And thanks to Ken for capturing this for us:

5.6 MB

As I mentioned on the Eagle Cam page a few days ago, the Norfolk scenario is somewhat similar to the one we saw develop at the Woodrow Wilson Bridge near Washington, DC with the resident eagle pair nicknamed George and Martha. George and Martha had a long productive history together, but a very aggressive female came into the territory and attacked Martha, injuring her so severely that she was taken to Tri-State Bird Rescue for rehabilitation. George was seen hanging around the new female, but he reunited with Martha when she was released. Sadly, Martha later hurt her elbow when she apparently flew into a power line, and Tri-State was not able to repair her wing, so she was euthanized. George then began hanging around with the new female and they began to bond.

While it is normally true that eagles mate for life, they will “divorce” if they are not productive as a couple. And now we are learning that if a third bird is aggressive enough, eagles might also split up if one partner is driven away.

Both of these circumstances drive home the point that as eagle populations grow, it means we are going to see new and possibly confusing behaviors from our local eagles — especially as eagles are forced to confront the challenges of a growing human population and fewer quality nesting sites near water, which will put pressure on single eagles to take over established nests. Although it’s not pleasant to see an eagle couple driven apart, the upside is that it is a symptom of a growing eagle population.

Norfolk Owl

I also wanted to offer a follow-up on the Great horned owl that had appeared at the Norfolk Eagle Cam a while back — this is the owl that made an appearance at the nest before the female eagle intruder arrived. According to the Norfolk biologists, it now appears this was a chance encounter, and that the owl did not likely know the eagle nest was occupied until it found the female eagle on the nest laying the first egg that night when the two raptors clashed. Since that time the owl has not reappeared, so apparently the owl was not attempting to take over the nest — it was just revisiting a nest it probably thought was not occupied. Our apologies to the owl for mistaking its intentions. ;-)

Other Nests
Some photos of other nests I wanted to share. Here we see the parents at the NCTC Eagle Cam protecting their eggs from the recent snow. Their eggs will hatch after ours. And here we see the two adult eagles on the Kent Eagle Cam in Washington state, where the nesting season is just beginning. Some other eagle cams to watch as nesting season approaches up north: the Barton Cove, MA Eagle Cam, the Ft. St. Vrain, CO Eagle Cam, the Maine Eagle Cam, the Hancock Eagle Cams in Canada, and the USFS Oregon Eagle Cam, which has an annoying intro page that you have to sit through before the cam will load.

Blackwater Eagles

Our 2008 Blackwater Eagle Cam appears to be relatively quiet right now (and we suddenly feel very fortunate about that!), and so we are on schedule to see our eggs hatch beginning around March 1. Of course, we can only hope the eggs are fertile, and we won’t know that for sure until the beginning of March, but our parents have been doing an excellent job carrying out their incubation duties, so there is no reason at this point to think the eggs won’t hatch. In the next blog post we’ll talk more about what we can expect come hatching time.

As for our parents, we know that sometimes they like to visit the Osprey Cam platform, which is near the Blackwater River and a variety of food, such as fish and waterfowl. Photographer Jon McRay got in touch with me recently about some photos he just took of eagles hunting at the Refuge, and he has generously offered to share those photos with us (see below). Based on Jon’s description of what he saw, it’s very likely that Jon was watching one of our parents.

According to Jon, “This past weekend the Snow Geese were in full force and were inside the end of the Wildlife Drive for a while, which made for some nice photos. As the geese were heading back out to the Blackwater River late in the day, some eagles perked up. One, possibly from the cam-nest, took a perch behind the Visitor’s Center on a stake and began watching the geese. She (or he) took flight, a few other eagles joined in, and they began to work on the geese. Within a matter of seconds, an eagle was in hot pursuit of a goose that had broken off from the group. The eagle swiped at it, and the goose fell from the sky. The eagle left the goose in the water, I suspect because it would have been too wet and heavy to carry, and she (or he) probably waited for it to wash up on a shallow patch.”

Below are Jon’s photos; click on the thumbnails for a larger version. As we’ve mentioned before in our blog, eagles will often try to target ducks or geese that have broken off from the group, because that makes them easier targets. As the adage goes, there is safety in numbers, and when a flocking bird goes it alone, that’s usually when it’s most vulnerable.

In addition to these shots, Jon has a fantastic Blackwater Refuge gallery on display at Flickr.com. Be sure to spend some time checking out his work. He has a lot of great eagle shots, including a fantastic eagle mating photo and also an incredible photo/animation of an eagle couple cartwheeling, which is a classic eagle-bonding ritual. Much thanks to Jon for sharing his work! I’ll definitely be highlighting more of his photos in the future.

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