First, a quick reminder — be sure to enter your names in our Eaglet-Naming Contest before April 15, which is when the contest ends. And thanks to those who have already submitted names.

These days our five-week-old eaglets are sometimes a bit hard to find in the nest. They’re starting to spend a lot of time lying along the edges of the nest. About a week ago, one of our adults must have hit the cam box, because our view has shifted slightly to the left; this makes it a little harder to see the eaglets when they sit down by the trunk of the nest tree.

Our older eaglet is quickly developing its feathers, and our younger chick is not far behind. The slight age advantage that our older bird has is the reason why it’s getting darker sooner, but our other chick will soon be dark brown as well.

Before Noah (from the Carolina Rapter Center) was moved to the hacking tower, someone sent me a photo of him, and it offered insight into how big our older chick likely is in comparison to our parents. Our Eagle Cam, with its view looking down into the nest, can sometimes offer a deceiving image of how big our chicks are, but make no mistake, they’re getting very big, and once their first coat of feathers becomes complete, they’ll be as big as our adults.

As for eventual fledging, we’re starting to see more shots of our eaglets flapping their wings, and this is necessary exercise that will prepare them for that first flight, which should come in May. Over the coming weeks, the eaglets will do a lot of flapping and hopping around the nest. Then the next big step will be branching, where the eaglets will hop/flap out onto the branches of their home tree, building up their courage for that first flight. Then sometime in May our birds will take that all-important first flight.

It’s an oft-repeated statement that quite a few bald eaglets don’t survive their first flight, but we’ve never lost one on our Eagle Cam, so we’re expecting our eaglets to do fine and return to the nest in one piece. After that historic flight, we’ll still see them quite a bit on the cam, as it will take another month or so for the eaglets to become independent enough that they’ll be out of the nest for most of the day. But eventually — probably in late June or early July — we’ll see very little of them as they fly around the Refuge with their parents and other eagles, learning to fish, hunt, perch and generally become skilled eagles before the next winter arrives when they’ll be on their own.

Several cam watchers have asked when our eaglets will get their white head and tail. Although our eaglets will reach adult size rather quickly, it will take about four years for them to get a fully white head and tail, which is the mark of an adult bald eagle that is ready for breeding. Our eaglets will start out with dark brown feathers, then they will slowly go through various stages of feather changes — courting a mix of white and brown — until they eventually get a white head and tail. The images below show some of the stages their feathers will go through before they truly look like the familiar American bald eagle:

Biologists speculate that immature or sub-adult birds have different coloring because it’s a way to let adult birds know that the young birds are not a threat to mates or nests, since these young birds will not be ready to breed until about the time they get their white head and tail, although there have been a couple Eagle Cams that had a breeding bird with some brown streaks on its head, indicating it was a very young breeder.

Note about Golden Eagles

Once our eaglets have left the nest and are flying around their home area, they’ll find plenty of adventure out in Blackwater Refuge. Not only will they have quite a few adult and immature bald eagles to interact with, they might even occasionally tangle with a golden eagle.

Back in February, we reported on a series of photos that had been posted on the Internet showing a golden eagle attacking a white-tailed deer in a cornfield. Not long after we posted those photos, we heard from Greg Inskip, who is familiar with the few golden eagles that we sometimes get at Blackwater Refuge. Greg passed along a similar story that I wanted to share regarding something that he saw at Blackwater two years ago, involving a sika deer, an immature bald eagle, and a golden eagle:

“The second Golden Eagle was a one-and-a-half year old at 8:55 am [1/20/08], kiting on wind deflected off the north face of the woods on the west side of Route 335, north of the old house and silo field (Hog Range). Mostly white tail with dark tip, but with dark feathers in the middle. Little or no white in the wing; bleached upperwing coverts. Looked as big or bigger than juvenile Bald Eagle that briefly mobbed her, so my guess is that this is a female.

This second Golden Eagle was kiting at about twice treetop height. She evaded the Bald Eagle, folded her wings and dropped toward the ground at a 45 degree angle, headed west. She leveled out about three feet over corn stubble, moving very fast. I saw dark bodies in the field ahead of her and thought at first that they were Turkeys, but they were Sika Deer. Two ran to either side and then back east toward me, white hair on their rumps raised in alarm. The eagle pursued at least one more deer into a patch of trees on the west side of the field, out of sight. She clearly missed because she was in the air again a few minutes after the attack. She rose high and glided downwind (southeast) out of sight over the Refuge.

The fact that the Sikas looked Turkey size may mean that they were farther away than I thought, but I believe that at least some of them were in fact small — possibly last year’s fawns. The eagle’s attack looked to be in deadly earnest. That coupled with the fact that she has been on her own for more than a year leads me to suspect that she might have succeeded with this quarry before.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Eagle Cam bald eagles interacted with this golden eagle that day and others. Not with a whole lot of warmth, I expect.”

Thanks to Greg for this great recap of some of the exciting eagle action we get at Blackwater NWR.

We have a new set of eaglet videos that I’ll post later this week. Thanks again to everyone for sending in their photos for the Eagle Cam Gallery.

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

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 6th, 2010 at 8:33 pm and is filed under Blackwater NWR, Eagle Cam, Eagle News, Fledging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.