Blackwater YouTube Channel

In case you missed it, we’ve posted four videos on our Blackwater YouTube Channel (look for the videos with 2009 in the title). These first videos of the 2009 season offer some interesting shots of our parents interacting and playing tug of war with a piece of food that the mother brought in (and didn’t want to give up!). Also one of the videos clearly shows a hole developing in the first egg — this was right before the snowstorm hit.

I have some more videos from the Refuge (our ranger tapes them for me) and I’ll be posting more clips soon, so stay tuned.

Every year we are amazed at how fast our little eaglets grow, and this year is no exception. We’ve been seeing some interesting shots on the Eagle Cam, and here are a few I wanted to point out:

• We saw a photo yesterday that showed the eaglets’ bulging crops. A crop is a pouch on the bird’s chest where extra food is stored for later consumption. Bulging crops mean the chicks are well fed.
• We’ve seen the eaglets holding out their tiny wings as they begin to slowly exercise them. We’ve also seen more entertaining shots of the eaglets peeking out from under the parent’s chest.
• Also, on at least two occasions, we’ve seen one of the parents calling out or clearly shielding the eaglets. It’s possible that a young immature bald eagle was tempted by the fish in the nest or was simply flying too close to the nest, and this alarmed the parents. It’s good to see the parents are on the ball when it comes to scaring away intruders.
• We’ve also seen the mother put grass on the eaglets, either to hide them or to keep them warm while she was off of them.
• And finally, we’ve seen more big meals coming to the nest. One of our cam watchers recently provided me with a great link that shows the most common fish in Maryland waters. You can use this site to ID the fish that the eagles (or ospreys eventually) bring to the nest. Based on this chart, it looks like the meal in the photo was a common carp. Another popular fish with the eagles is American gizzard shad.

Many cam watchers have commented on how mobile the chicks are becoming. In fact a couple times they wandered a little too close to the edge and made some of us nervous, but the parents were good about herding them back toward the nest bowl. Nancy G — one of our cam watchers — put together a Quicktime movie (800KB) that shows the eaglets moving and then being brought back under the parent. Much thanks to Nancy for this neat clip!

A final note about our parents: Some cam watchers have asked if this is the same father from last year, since his food-delivery performance has greatly improved. It’s highly likely it’s the same father — but now he’s more experienced. It’s not uncommon for raptor parents to improve with practice. Some young parents lose their offspring to predators because they lack experience in protecting them. I’ve also heard of young raptor parents building poorly constructed nests in unstable trees, but eventually learning to build better nests in better locations. So raptor parents can learn and they can improve over time — a lot like human parents.

IWS Eaglet Videos and Photos

A couple cam watchers asked me to post the IWS Eaglet Videos and Photos link again, so I wanted to do that. Be sure to take a moment to watch the videos — you’ll see how feisty little bald eaglets can be. They love to peck.

Great Horned Owl

Finally, I wanted to talk a bit more about our Great horned owl, which has been visiting the Osprey Cam nest somewhat regularly now. In years past, we’ve had the occasional visit from a Great horned owl on the Osprey Cam, but the appearances have been rather rare. This owl (we can only assume it’s the same) has been a regular visitor. The reason it’s meaningful is because while Great horned owls are helpful to humans because of the quantity of rodents they eat, the owls are also known to be predators of osprey chicks — and even sometimes osprey adults.

At Jug Bay Natural Area in Maryland they have over 30 osprey platforms, and they have often had an issue with Great horned owls preying on osprey chicks. In fact, on an osprey banding trip last year, a dead, banded adult female osprey was discovered in the water beneath a nest — apparently the victim of a Great horned owl. Considering how large a female osprey is, this was quite a large predator to take on.

As I mentioned on the Osprey Cam page a few days ago, Great horned owls have also been known — on somewhat rare occasions — to take over osprey nests, as can be seen in this post on the Stokes Birding Blog.

We’ve never had a problem with Great horned owls attacking an osprey on the Blackwater Osprey Cam nest. At this point we can only hope that the sight of our returning osprey couple will be enough to keep the owl away. Once the ospreys return north and reclaim their nest, they’ll likely present enough of a challenge that the owl will decide to give up perching at the nest.

As each day passes, we get more excited about the thought of our first osprey showing up on the Osprey Cam. We hear quite a few ospreys have already been seen around the Chesapeake Bay. Won’t be long now!

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

This entry was posted on Friday, March 13th, 2009 at 6:49 am and is filed under Eagle Cam, Eaglets, Hatching. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.