Eaglets about two weeks old

We’re doing a quick post tonight to share some video clips from March 5 that I just edited.

I’m posting the three videos (WMV format) here for those who told me that they’re on a network that can’t access YouTube. But if you can access YouTube, you can view these videos on our Blackwater YouTube channel. Just look for the three 2009 videos with “Two Newly Hatched Eaglets” in the title.

To view the videos below, left-click on the video link to open in Windows Media Player, or right-click the link and choose “Save Link As” to download.

In the first video below, the mother has just come in with a fish and the father eventually stands up to reveal the two new eaglets — both only a couple days old. After the father leaves, the mother feeds a few bits to the chicks — the younger bird on the left and the older chick on the right.

6.3 MB

In the second video clip, if you watch very carefully about 13 seconds into the clip, the younger eaglet slices (a falconry term for defecating). The eaglets are able to shoot it out quite far, even right after hatching; this helps keep the nest clean.

After showing off its slicing skills, the younger eaglet then decides it’s time to wallop on its sibling. After watching the videotapes from the Refuge, I have to say that this is the most aggression I’ve seen from one of our younger eaglets. Maybe it’s because the two chicks are only a day apart and the younger eaglet thinks it has a shot at being #1.

The older eaglet puts up with the pecking for a while — trying to concentrate on the possible meal — but eventually the older bird has to respond and both chicks go at it. This sequence eventually ended with the mother giving up on the meal and going over and sitting on them both.

6.3 MB

In the final video clip, we see one of the eaglets stand up briefly as the father eagle flies in. He then moves what could be some old food in the nest and takes his place on the chicks.

6.3 MB

It’s not surprising to see our eaglets pecking at one another — that’s what young eaglets do — but it was a little surprising to see the younger bird being so aggressive. But that’s why we watch each year — we’re always learning something new. Eventually this aggression will fade as the eaglets grow, and at some point they’ll become more like playmates.

Our ranger is taping more video for us, so we’ll post more video clips in the near future, once we have an interesting collection to share.

Also, I’m working on a Gallery update, which I hope to have posted in the next few days. Thanks to everyone for their photos!

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
Contact

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

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
Contact

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

We have a variety of news to share, so forgive me if this blog post jumps around a bit more than some of our previous entries.

First, I think most of our cam watchers have been mightily impressed with the quantity — and selection — of food that the parents have been bringing to the eaglets. We haven’t been keeping close track, but we have to assume the father is bringing in most of it, because normally the mother spends more time with the chicks at this stage of their lives. We’ve seen two rabbits, as well as ducks, and numerous fish. In this photo, you can see legs, and wings and bodies all around the nest — a young eaglet’s dream!

In the photos I’ve seen, there does seem to be a little pecking going on by the older eaglet, although it’s likely reduced by the fact that the chicks must be well fed at this point. I asked our ranger about it (since he can see the live video feed at our Refuge Visitor Center) and he said for the brief time he was able to watch this morning, there wasn’t a lot of bullying, but he did see the younger eaglet peck at the older eaglet — a bit of a switch since normally the older chick is the one who sets the rules.

We have noticed the younger eaglet seems a bit lethargic at times, but we don’t believe there is anything wrong with it, since we also see occasions where it’s active. We’ve been getting a patch of warm weather lately, and that combined with the fact that both chicks are still very young, might be why they don’t seem super active all the time.

We did see a classic sign last night that we look forward to each year. When the chicks are a few days old, they sometimes like to sit with their heads peeking out from under their parent’s chest. And last night we saw two little heads peeking out from under the mother, a sure sign that they’re already growing and starting to mature before our eyes.

Other Eagle Cams

I know folks enjoy watching other eagle cams in addition to ours, so I wanted to share some links since hatching season is getting underway. Here’s a good selection:

• Channel Island Eagle Cams (California)
• Colorado Eagle Cam
• NCTC Eagle Cam (West Virginia)
• Norfolk Eagle Cam (Virginia)
• Redding, California Eagle Cam
• Oklahoma Eagle Cam
• Washington State Eagle Cams
• Maine Eagle Cam
• Hornby Island, British Columbia Eagle Cam

And for those like me who just can’t wait for our ospreys to return, we hear the Hilton Head, South Carolina Osprey Cam now has an egg.

If you’re looking around for a site that can help you find bird cams, be sure to check out Beakspeak, which provides links as well as updates on what is happening at the nests.

Osprey Cam Update

Our ospreys will be returning north in the next few weeks, so we’ll be keeping an eye out for the first shot showing a fish hawk on our Osprey Cam platform. We plan to have the bucket truck out next week to get the cam ready for the new season, so we might go offline for about an hour when that happens.

As I mentioned on the Osprey Cam page, we have reset the image updating to 45 seconds for the time being, and altered both cams so they are updating from 4am to 10pm. We had to do this because we have a satellite-dish-imposed limit on our bandwidth. Note that this has nothing to do with how many people watch our cams online; it’s strictly related to the dish. We will adjust the cam times throughout the year to accommodate this limit and to provide the best views we can based on what is happening on each cam at any given time. We’re working to get our dish provider to widen our bandwidth limit so we can offer shorter update times on both cams.

As we’ve noted on the Osprey Cam page, we’ve been getting regular visits from a Great horned owl at the nest, and I’m actually going to save that topic for another blog post that I’ll publish later this coming week. But this is the most frequent set of visits that we’ve had at the nest from an owl.

And in final news from the Osprey Cam, Tom Lorsung — a local cam watcher and photographer — sent me a photo that was taken at the end of this week showing a subadult bald eagle leaving the Osprey Cam nest. We thank Tom for allowing us to share this amazing shot.

Eagle Festival

I wanted to remind folks that on March 14, Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge will be holding its 9th Annual Eagle Festival. We have a great schedule of events, and if you come, you’ll be able to watch the live video feed of our Eagle Cam and Osprey Cam on the TV monitors at our Visitor Center. Which means no waiting for image updates! By the way, our ranger has been taping some of the action on the monitors, and we plan to post video clips of the eaglets on this blog and at YouTube soon.

Gallery

Finally I wanted to make a quick comment about our recent Eagle Cam Gallery update. I know some cam watchers likely noticed that their names were not included in all the photos they sent or that all of their submissions were not added to the Gallery. Sometimes I have to spread the credits around because certain shots are submitted by a lot of people. Also, I do edit the submissions to include the ones that I think are interesting or show a series of events that provide some interesting revelations about the eagles’ behavior.

Even if we don’t use all the images, that doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate them being sent. We just have to edit the quantity in order to keep the Gallery at a manageable size. By the way, if you’re new to our cams, instructions for sending images can be found on our Submit Photos page. Thanks again to everyone who takes the time to send them in.

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
Contact

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