Eaglets almost one month old

First, I wanted to remind everyone that the Eaglet-Naming Contest is open and you have until April 18 to get your names in for our two eaglets. Much thanks to those who have already submitted their names.

Second, I wanted to briefly mention our osprey action — or lack thereof. We’re a little confused by the lack of nesting action from our migrating ospreys this year. We had heard that action was slow at many local nests, which seemed to indicate that the ospreys may have started their migration late because of the cooler weather. We recently heard from photographer Bob Quinn — who makes frequent visits to Blackwater Refuge — that many of our Refuge nests are light on action at this time. We did see two ospreys on the cam nest Saturday and they brought in a few sticks, but then we’ve seen very little of them, so at this point we’re just in a waiting mode to see what our local ospreys are going to do. Hopefully we’ll eventually get a pair (any pair!) at the Osprey Cam nest.

Speaking of ospreys, many folks might not know that Finland is home to a very large and healthy population of ospreys, and there are two Finnish osprey cams that offer some of the most beautiful views I’ve ever seen on a bird cam. I wanted to point out two recent photos from these cams that offer an interesting look at some non-osprey action in Finland. The first Finnish cam offers a view of a forest behind the nest, and recently there was a raven making itself at home. As you can see, they’re still battling with the last bits of winter in Finland. The second Finnish cam offers a stunning view of the water, and this nest often sees action from white-tailed eagles — a raptor that is a close cousin to our American bald eagle. When visiting these cams, just keep in mind their daylight hours are a bit different than ours.

Talons and Pin Feathers

I know folks have been worried about our younger eaglet, although the youngster seems to be doing rather well the last couple days. The food has been pretty good in the nest, and we’ve seen both chicks getting fed. As I mentioned on the cam page, our younger bird lost the white down on his head a little faster than normal because he was being pecked by the older bird, but the youngster won’t have any lasting damage from this.

The white down on our older eaglet’s head is the last of the bird’s first coat of down (they lose it on their heads last). The eaglets are now dark gray on their bodies because they have their second woolier coat of down, and in addition to this gray coloring you can also see the eaglets’ pin feathers starting to come in on their backs and their wing tips. If you were to see our eaglets up close, this is what they would look like at this stage (note the feather shafts starting to appear on this eaglet’s wing).

We’ll talk more about pin feathers in another post, but in addition to their beginner feathers I also wanted to point out the eaglets’ big yellow talons, which are often visible when the birds are sitting up in the nest or sprawled out in the sun.

The beaks and talons of young bald eaglets grow faster than other parts of their bodies, and by about mid-April, their beaks and talons will be close to adult size. Full-size beaks allow the eaglets to feed themselves and full-size feet allow them to hold on tightly to the nest when they’re moving around during windy weather or when they’re flapping their wings in practice for eventual flight.

The eagle’s talons are comprised of four powerful toes that can break through tough fish skin or animal skin and can hold tight to their prey while carrying it home or to a branch. These talons are similar to the osprey’s in that they both have tiny spicules on the toes (spicules are little bumps that help the raptors hold onto slippery fish). But the osprey has one advantage that the eagle does not have — an opposable toe. One of the osprey’s front toes can rotate backwards so that two toes are holding the fish from the back and two from the front. An eagle can only hold the fish with one back toe (called the hallux). This means an osprey has an easier time holding onto a thrashing fish.

Norfolk Eagle Cam

If you haven’t been watching the Norfolk Eagle Cam, I strongly urge you to check out their live video. They’ve been offering some wonderful close-up shots of the three new eaglets. The Norfolk parents have been providing a huge amount of food to this hungry mob, and both parents have been helping to feed the chicks. Also the other day I saw the male adult feed the female adult a few pieces, which she ate. I had seen this behavior with osprey parents before, but never with eagle parents.

I borrowed a few photos from the Norfolk slide shows because I wanted to point out some interesting action here:

• in the first shot you can see one parent passing food to the other. The Norfolk blog said sometimes the male would pass food to the female who would then feed the food to the chicks
• in the second shot you can see the last eaglet hatching next to its two siblings
• in the third shot is a great close-up of two young bald eaglets. Note the white tip on the eaglets’ beaks — that’s the egg tooth which falls off not long after hatching
• and in the fourth shot you can see the large quantity of food — in fact at least three fish and one bird in this view

We feel especially glad that Norfolk is enjoying such great success this year because if you remember, last year they had only one chick and it developed avian pox. Biologists decided to remove the bird and it was taken to the Wildlife Center of Virginia for treatment, and it remains there at this time.

We’ll try to get the Gallery updated later this week. Also, I’ve been told that some new videotapes from the Eagle Cam are on their way to me, so we should have some new clips to post online soon.

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

I’m starting off this blog post with something a little out of the ordinary, but we received some sad news last week. Some of you might remember seeing Aline Paquet’s name in our galleries (usually as Aline or Aline P). Some might even remember that in a 2007 blog post, I shared a photo Aline had sent from her home area of Quebec. We just learned that in February Aline was told she had cancer, and sadly she passed away earlier this month.

Aline was a valued cam watcher, sharing many photos that contributed greatly to our galleries and to our understanding of both the eagles and ospreys. She was also a big fan of the American Panda Cams (as many of us are), and she had dreamed of a trip to America to see Blackwater, the pandas, and some of her other favorite “Internet” spots. We will miss Aline and her enthusiastic love of nature. We’re glad she did not suffer long.

Note: The Eaglet-Naming Contest is Open

Eaglets three weeks old

Eaglet #1

When the eaglets first hatched, we were very excited that they were born only a day apart (meaning they’d be close in size) and we were just as excited to see lots of food coming to the nest, which we knew would reduce the sibling rivalry between the chicks. Unfortunately, this situation has changed. For some reason the parents cut back on the food supply, which increased the competition between the chicks, and now the older chick has firmly established itself as Eaglet #1.

The older bird gets fed first, gets the most food, is growing larger, and spends most of his non-eating time making sure the younger eaglet keeps its head down and acts submissive. During meal time, you’ve probably noticed the younger eaglet often keeps its back turned and head down until the older eaglet has finished eating. This is because the younger bird has learned that Eaglet #1 gets to eat first — and if the younger bird objects, he gets pecked and harassed.

We do believe that both birds are getting enough food — in fact today was an especially good day with fish and a rabbit in the nest. So we don’t worry about the younger eaglet surviving, we just wish things were a little easier for the youngster. The good news is this situation will not last forever. Each day the smaller bird grows bigger (although not as fast as its well-fed sibling!), and eventually it will be big enough that the older bird won’t be able to mess with it as much.

Cam watchers have asked about photos they’ve seen where the younger bird was near food in the nest but did not eat. The eaglets are still small enough that they can’t tear off meat for themselves — they are dependent on the parents to do that, but this will also change. Eventually the younger eaglet will be strong enough to tear off food and feed itself, so if there is leftover food in the nest, it won’t have to wait for a parent to feed it.

On a final observation, I know some cam watchers were worried about how often the chicks are left uncovered. The birds are able to keep themselves quite warm now, especially since they have developed their heavier and woolier second coat of down, so the parents don’t need to sit on them as much. We do see the mother return at night and stay with the chicks, but this is more for protection since the eaglets are still small enough to possibly be a victim of a Great horned owl attack. If it rains, then protection from the parent is still needed since the eaglets do not have their waterproof feathers yet, but each day we see evidence that the eaglets are beginning to develop tiny pin feathers that will eventually provide them with a nice waterproof coat of feathers like their parents have, and this will keep them safe from the elements.

We’re very close to opening our Eaglet-Naming Contest — I’ve approved the contest page and we’re just wrapping up some final technical details, then we’ll make the announcement. Thanks for your patience.

Oh — and as a final parting gift, we just recently discovered an old photo on one of our computers showing the Eagle Cam tree. I know lots of cam watchers have expressed an interest in seeing the tree, so I thought I’d share the shot.

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

Eaglets almost three weeks old

As some cam watchers have noticed, in the last two days the adult eagles have cut back their meals to the early morning and late afternoon. We’re not sure why they’re doing this — but it does seem a strange coincidence that it started just as the ospreys were returning to the Refuge. Both parents appear to be healthy and the fishing is good at the Refuge, but the lack of mid-day meals has increased the bullying somewhat in the nest (as it tends to do) and we’re seeing our younger eaglet keeping his head down a lot — trying to look submissive for the older eaglet.

Hopefully the parents will pick up the meal pace here shortly and food will come more freely.

Ospreys Return

We were very excited to hear on Friday that ospreys had been spotted at Blackwater Refuge. And then on Saturday morning, we got our first sighting of an osprey on the Osprey Cam platform. The bird appeared to have a white chest, and it looked smaller than the larger female osprey, so we suspect it was a male. We’re not sure if it’s our resident male (we don’t band or tag our ospreys), but he did come back to the nest on and off, so it’s possible it’s the male owner of the cam platform.

Male ospreys usually return north first, with females following shortly thereafter. Our ospreys winter in Central and South America, so if our male looked a little tired, he surely was. The returning ospreys usually hang out for a while, resting and feeding and recovering from their long journey, so we don’t expect much nest building at this point.

Each year when the ospreys return, they usually find most of their sticks gone from the Osprey Cam platform. Strong winds blow out a lot of the sticks, and the eagles might take some for their own nests. But once the osprey couple returns and begins building the nest in earnest, it doesn’t take them too long to turn an empty nest into a full nest. Biologists believe the nest building helps bond the couple; also, adding fresh material means there won’t be old food and bugs in the nest for the new year.

We haven’t seen a female on the nest yet, and we can’t be sure she survived migration. Ospreys face a lot of dangers down south — mostly from fish farmers and livestock owners who shoot ospreys in large numbers — but ospreys are usually pretty loyal to their mates, so if our female made it through the winter, she should return to the nest. If she didn’t survive, our male will likely be able to find another mate, especially since he has such a fine nest as the cam platform.

Photographer Bob Quinn was at the Refuge on Friday and witnessed some of the early returning ospreys. He wrote me an email to say that he had just seen an eagle try to steal a fish from an osprey, and that pretty much sums up the unusual relationship that bald eagles have with ospreys. While we’ve never seen the bald eagles challenge the ospreys for possession of the Osprey Cam platform, we have seen them regularly attempt to steal fish from ospreys. And since eagles are much bigger raptors, they often succeed at robbing the fish hawks of their meal.

But ospreys are not always helpless victims, and often they will team up as a couple to keep the eagle at bay. In fact while Bob Quinn was at the Refuge, he saw an osprey intercept an eagle that was chasing another osprey with a fish. Our ranger, Tom Miller, has also seen osprey couples team up to keep an eagle from stealing a meal from a parent that was trying to return to the nest with its prize.

Bob has posted some photos from his Friday trip to the Refuge — if you scroll to the bottom of the gallery page you can see the osprey intercepting the eagle. You can also see some photos of a male osprey in a tree eating a fish and photos of three ospreys chasing each other around one of our more popular water platforms. Much thanks to Bob for giving us this in-person look at the return of our popular ospreys.

And speaking of osprey galleries, I also wanted to share another gallery link that a cam watcher shared with me that shows some amazing osprey action photography.

And on a final note, we’re preparing a web page for the start of our annual Eaglet-Naming Contest, so for those who have asked, we’re getting close to opening the contest. When it starts, we’ll post the news on the cam page and here in the web log.

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
Contact

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