Based on the promising photos we’ve been seeing on the Eagle Cam, I thought it was a good time to start the 2009-2010 Eagle Cam Web Log. If you didn’t see the note on the cam page, we have also opened the 2009/2010 Eagle Cam Gallery, and in our first batch of shots we can see the adult eagles bringing in new sticks and eating several meals at the nest. (Note that the meals were possibly brought in by the male as a gift to the female, to prove he is a good provider.)

In addition to these encouraging photos, I noticed there were also several bonding shots, showing one of the eagles rubbing the other with its beak. These are all pre-nesting activities that we’ve seen in years past, and they have all led to eggs by the end of January and the beginning of February. So far we’ve had excellent luck with this nest in that every year that we’ve been live on the Web, all the eggs have hatched (at least 2 every year) and all the eaglets have fledged successfully.

During this time of year other activities are occurring away from our camera, and these would include aerial types of bonding, such as the cartwheel display. The cartwheel display is where the eagles will fly high, lock talons, and then cartwheel to earth, breaking apart right at the last moment before they hit the ground or water. A myth has persisted for a long time that eagles copulate in the air while doing the cartwheel display, but this is not true. Mating normally occurs on trees, on the ground, or on places like the Osprey Cam platform. Below is an animated GIF of the cartwheeling display, taken at Blackwater NWR by photographer Jon McRay. Much thanks to Jon for this incredible animated image (click on the image):

One question I get asked a lot during the early part of the season is whether or not this is the same couple from last year’s Eagle Cam, and I would say the odds are good that this is the same pair. Eagles are very loyal to their nests, returning to them year after year; in fact they’re so loyal, if their nest is blown down or the tree falls down, they will often rebuild nearby. Also adult eagles mate for life, so it’s highly likely this is our same pair from last year.

Another common question is whether this pair is the same pair that we see on the Osprey Cam. Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge has a large number of eagles at the Refuge in the winter — many migrate down here from areas in the north — so while it’s possible there have been different eagles on the Osprey Cam, we have seen eagles from the osprey platform take food to the Eagle Cam nest. In those situations, we’re sure that it’s the same pair using both cam nests.

And the last question I wanted to address is the one I get the most — and that is in regards to streaming video. We know that many of our viewers would like to see the cam images in streaming video, like other cams on the Web. Unfortunately streaming video is not possible with the broadband service we must use to get the images to our website. Due to the rural location of the Refuge, we must use a satellite dish service to send the images to our website servers because there are no other options for broadband service at the Refuge. Satellite dish service is the most expensive and least flexible broadband service; however, it is the only service we can use.

Our satellite dish provider sets limits on the amount of bandwidth each user is given to prevent any one customer from “hogging” all the bandwidth. If we exceed the upload limit, the company cuts off our signal to get us within our allowance, and the cams go dark. We actively manage the upload volume by limiting the hours of operation and the image-updating times. But please note that the length of time that you watch our cams does not affect our limit. You are downloading the images using your individual Internet Service Provider, and so your visits to the cam pages will not impact our dish service.

If you visit the beautiful Visitor Center at Blackwater NWR, you can watch live streaming video from our cams on the monitors in the building — this is because the monitors are receiving the local feed. In addition, during the season we plan to upload Eagle Cam video clips to our YouTube channel, which we have done in previous seasons, and we hope these opportunities to see our eagles in action will help make up for our lack of streaming video.

If you’re new to our Eagle Cam, I encourage you to learn more by reading our Eagle Watchers Guide (PDF) and also our Eagle Cam Q&A page. If you visit our Cam Central page, you can find image galleries and the web logs from previous seasons. And if you’d like to learn how to submit photos to our gallery, read our submission instructions. Thanks for joining us for another year, and thanks to those who sent in their photos!

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

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 3rd, 2010 at 3:05 pm and is filed under Blackwater NWR, Eagle Cam, Nesting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.