Our two eaglets seem to be doing well, and our parents are bringing in some impressive looking fish — most of which seem to be gizzard shad. You can definitely tell that the river has thawed and the fishing is good.

As we promised in our last web log post, we have several eaglet videos to share. These were captured from our live video feed at Blackwater Refuge on February 27 and February 28. Since our chicks hatched on February 26 and 28, they’re a bit wobbly in the clips since they’re not very old.

Note that these videos are also being offered on our YouTube channel for those who prefer to view them that way. For the clips below, left-click on the link to play the Windows Media Video file or right-click and choose “Save As” to download to your computer.

In our first video we see one parent arrive to relieve the other parent of nest duties, and we get our first good look at our older eaglet. The chick was only about half a day old here, and its head was bouncing a bit since its neck muscles were still a little weak.

In the second clip from February 27, we see another parent switch, but after the first parent arrives, both parents start calling out at something. We’re not sure what they were “yelling” at, but it’s possible another large bird flew too close to the nest — maybe attracted to the fish. After the calling stops, the parent on the chick/egg stands up and we see our eaglet and what looks like a small hole in the remaining egg (keep in mind the second eaglet hatched the following morning). At the end of the clip, we get a good look at how the parent settles down on the chick/egg and rocks back and forth to position itself. Amazingly the chick can somehow breathe even with the parent on top of it.

In the last clip from February 27, we see a brief feeding session with our first eaglet. If you thought the parents needed patience when incubating during the snow storms, you can see they need just as much patience when feeding tiny eaglets. Often the eaglet will stab at the food but miss since it hasn’t quite got the knack of taking food from the parent’s beak. Sometimes the food will fall into the nest, but the eaglet never looks down for it — the young bird always looks to the parent’s beak for food — so the parent has to pick it up and try feeding it again to the chick. And sometimes the parent will hold out the food but the eaglet will just stare back, like it’s not sure what to do next. Eagle parents have to be very patient if they’re going to feed their young.

And in our final clip, which is from February 28, we see the second eaglet has arrived and both eaglets are sitting up for a feeding session. As you can see in the clip, the newly hatched chick makes several stabs at the food in the parent’s beak but only gets a tiny bit of it toward the end. During these sessions, the parent will continue to hold out food until it looks like the chicks are getting tired, then the parent will go back to sitting on them until it’s time for another try. During the upcoming days, the chicks will get stronger and the feeding sessions will get longer and more productive.

I should note that while watching our parents feed, I did see both the female and male feeding the eaglets, so our male is participating in the feeding sessions as well, which was nice to see.

After having watched male parents on both the Osprey Cam and Eagle Cam over the years, it seems the male eagles are more prone to helping feed the young than our male ospreys have been in the past. Our male ospreys do help with incubation duties, but only certain males will feed the chicks. I’ve even seen chicks standing in front of a male osprey waiting to be fed, but the male would not participate, either indicating that he didn’t know how to feed or he was unwilling to take on that chore.

Technical Note
I wanted to make a quick mention about the static you might have been seeing on the Eagle Cam. We see it too, and we’ve checked our equipment but we can’t seem to clear it up. It’s possible we need to clean a connector on our equipment near the nest tree, but we can’t do that now since it might disturb the parents. So we plan on checking those connectors once the chicks are a bit older and when it will be safe to approach the nest tree. Hopefully the static won’t get worse while we wait.

Until next time,

Lisa – webmaster
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We want to officially welcome our two new eaglets into the world! After the heavy snows we had this winter, I think many of us were a little worried this day wouldn’t come, but our eaglets hatched right on time and look very healthy, thanks to our incredible parents.

For those keeping score, here is the final tally:

1st egg
Laid: January 20
Hatched: February 26 (early evening)

2nd egg:
Laid: January 23
Hatched: February 28 (early morning)

At this point our father eagle has brought in several good-sized fish, so the chicks and mother eagle have plenty of food. Our ranger said one of the fish looked like a gizzard shad for those who are interested in fish species.

We were also happy to see the chicks hatch so close together, which might mean the older bird has less of a size advantage. Bald eaglets are the fastest growing birds in North America, so it doesn’t take much time for one chick to get bigger than the others in the nest, and then use its size to establish its dominance. We should still expect to see some bullying though, because that’s just how raptor chicks behave. In fact, while I was at the Refuge watching the TV monitor of the Eagle Cam this past weekend, I saw the younger chick take a peck at its older sibling. This kind of behavior won’t be tolerated for long by the older chick, and the pecking order will soon be established with the older bird as ruler of meal time.

Our next milestone for the chicks will be the development of their second coat of down, which will be heavier and darker than the light-colored down they have now. This heavier coat will help protect them from the elements, and it will be their last down covering before their first set of feathers come in. Also in a few weeks, the chicks will develop the ability to control their own body temperature, and at that stage the female will not have to spend so much time covering them up and keeping them out of view.

I’m sure some cam watchers are curious about the gender of our eaglets. It’s very hard to tell at this age, so we won’t even try. But once the eaglets are close to fledging, they will be almost full grown, and we should have a clear indication as to their sex, with females being the bigger birds. Statistics do seem to show that most firstborns in bald eagle nests are female, but we’ve had firstborn males on the Eagle Cam, so I’m not sure the stats are helpful.

And for those who are wondering about our traditional Eaglet-Naming Contest — we will hold our annual contest this spring to name our eaglets. We’ll make further announcements about the contest here in the web log and on the cam page once we get ready to post our contest page in about a month.

As for video clips, while I was at the Refuge over the weekend, we did capture some video footage of our eaglets, and we plan on posting video clips sometime later this week showing our wobbly-headed youngsters.

Eagle Festival

If you’ve been thinking about making a trip out to Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge to see our two eaglets in person, you might want to plan on a visit March 13 — this is the day of our 10th Annual Eagle Festival. The Eagle Festival is our most popular event of the year, and it contains many activities for both adults and kids. We offer a free bird walk and also free Eagle Prowls, where you can get a guided eagle tour of Blackwater. We’ll also have live raptors on display, as well as special presentations that will tell you more about eagle behavior, the Chesapeake Bay, and Blackwater Refuge.

And perhaps best of all, if you come to our beautiful Visitor Center, you’ll be able to see live video of our two new eaglets on the TV monitors, which we have on both the 1st and 2nd floors of the building. We also have a real eagle’s nest on the first floor of the Visitor Center, as well as a wonderful gift store full of eagle and osprey merchandise, so you can take home some nifty Blackwater souvenirs.

Check out our Festival page for a schedule of events and make plans to come for what is sure to be a very fun day at Blackwater.

Other Nests

In other cam news: We hear the Iowa Eagle Cam now has an egg, as does the Pelican Harbor Eagle Cam on the Channel Islands in California, so be sure to check them out. Caltrans Eagle Cam has three eggs and the Colorado Eagle Cam has two eggs. Finally the three eggs at the Norfolk Eagle Cam should begin hatching around March 9.

Speaking of eagle cams, Wonderful West Virginia Magazine just posted a very nice article on the Eagle Cam at the National Conservation Training Center in West Virginia, where they’re hoping the fourth egg was protected from the deep snow and might eventually hatch.

Also, one of our cam watchers sent in a good shot from the Carolina Eagle Cam where, as we’ve mentioned, they have a captive bald eagle family with one chick.

Photo Submissions

And our final topic today is in regards to photo submissions sent to us for our galleries. I want to thank all those who sent in photos during our hatching period. If you noticed that your particular photo didn’t get included in the gallery updates, please know we have to edit the number to keep the gallery at a reasonable size, but that doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate receiving the shots. I would always rather have too many photos than not enough, since sometimes one cam watcher sees something that the rest of us miss. So thanks again for taking the time to capture and email your photos. We appreciate them all.

And if you’re new to our site and wonder how people submit photos, visit our instruction page for details. Basically we just ask that you keep the image the same size as it is on the cam page and that you send it as a JPEG file.

Until next time,

Lisa – webmaster
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As we mentioned in an earlier post, based on the timing of our previous eggs, we expect the first egg to hatch around February 24 or 25, although it could possibly go as late as February 27. Anything beyond that date could mean there might be something wrong with the egg. As for our second chick, we believe it will likely hatch around February 27 or 28.

In the past, we have had eggs hatch in the morning and also the late afternoon, so we can’t say for sure when we can expect hatching to begin. For those who are new to our Eagle Cam, here is a series of shots showing the first egg hatching in our 2004-2005 season. During that season we had the camera closer to the nest, although it proved to be too close when the chicks got bigger, so we’ve since moved the cam farther up the tree.

When the eaglet is ready to hatch, it will turn itself inside the egg and pierce the egg’s air sac, then the chick will take its first breath of air from within the shell. Next the chick will use its neck muscles and egg tooth (on the tip of its beak) to pip or punch a small hole in the shell — see the photo to the right from our 2004-2005 three-egg clutch. The eaglet will continue to slowly turn and peck until it has cut a hole around the diameter of the shell so that it can push out the bottom half and free itself. This process is very tiring for the chick and can take 24 hours to complete since the young bird will frequently stop to rest. Once the eaglet is out, it will be wet and tired with its eyes closed, but it won’t be long before it dries off and is soon able to see and sit up.

Here you can see a photo of our first eaglet in the 2004-2005 season sitting up for the mother eagle, even as its sibling is hatching right beside it.

The parents will be our best clue that something is happening. When the eaglet first begins to chirp from inside the shell, the parents will hear it, and so we can watch their body language for signs that they hear something. If the parent in the nest looks fidgety or keeps getting up and looking at the eggs, that means the parent hears something.

Cam watchers often wonder if the parents help the chick during the hatching process. In the five years that we’ve seen eaglets hatch on the Eagle Cam, we haven’t see any visible sign that our parents are helping the eaglet get out of the shell, but then again we’ve never seen any sign that our eaglets were having trouble.

Also I wanted to point out that once the chick hatches, it might not be immediately fed. Before the eaglet hatches it absorbs the yolk and uses that for early nourishment, so there is no pressing need for the parents to immediately bring food. However, a couple times in the past we have seen our father eagle bring a fish or duck right as hatching started, indicating that he knew the chick was coming and had done some early hunting.

Blackwater Refuge and Snow Geese

The Eagle Cam action isn’t the only excitement at Blackwater Refuge these days. I was at the Refuge on Saturday and discovered that we have an enormous amount of snow geese currently at the Refuge, along with a large amount of Canada geese and tundra swans. We hear there may be as many as 11,000 snow geese. Below are two photos that I took near the Visitor Center showing the snow geese flocks. Whenever a bald eagle or something similarly upsetting would fly near the birds, thousands of them would take to the air, fly around in a circle and then eventually settle down and begin resting and feeding again. As you can imagine, the noise they make is tremendous. Soon the geese will be heading north in anticipation of spring.

Carolina Captive Eagle

I wanted to post a follow-up on the captive Carolina Raptor Center eagles that we mentioned previously. They currently have one eaglet (the second did not make it), and based on this photo, it seems to be doing well. Also we hear that Savannah (the captive female) nests on the ground because she cannot fly. There are five eagles in the enclosure, but Derek and Savannah bonded, so they are the parenting couple. Thanks to those who passed along the information on this unusual eagle family.

Until next time,

Lisa – webmaster
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eagles, wildlife refuge, raptors, lead poisoning, Blackwater Refuge, Maryland

I have a bunch of general news to share in this post, so you’ll have to forgive me if we jump around a good bit. :-)

Blackwater Eagle Cam

First, on the homefront — our parents continue to amaze and delight us with their very “professional” parenting. I know we’ll talk about this winter for a long time, and one of the things we’ll remember is how our eagle parents stuck with the eggs and somehow managed to keep them relatively dry and warm in very deep snow. If the eggs are viable and if the little eaglets are developing as we hope, we think we might see hatching start around February 24 for the first-laid egg. We’ll talk more about what to watch for during hatching in our next web log post.

Other Eagle Cams

We hear the female adult at the NCTC Eagle Cam in West Virginia laid a fourth egg. Is this the fourth egg of the first clutch or the first egg of the second clutch? The good news is the nest cup has lost its snow, so there might be hope for the viability of the last egg. We’ll keep our fingers crossed for this determined pair.

As for other cams, in case you missed the links I posted, there is an Eagle Cam based at the Carolina Raptor Center in North Carolina, and the captive female has an eaglet or maybe two. Folks have asked what becomes of the eaglets there, and the website says they’re released into the wild when they’re old enough. Also I was asked why the female nests on the ground. Since this is a captive eagle, there is likely no danger of land predators around the nest. Sometimes eagles that nest in the wild in areas with no land predators (like isolated islands) nest on the ground, although it’s rare. One final possibility is the Carolina Raptor Center doesn’t have a tree fit for a bald eagle nest, so the female uses the ground nest.

And we also hear the Ft St Vrain Eagle Cam in Colorado has an egg, as does the popular Caltrans Eagle Cam in California. Good luck to all!

Eagle Photography

Glo — an eagle lover and very skilled photographer — recently shared a blog post with me that shows an immature bald eagle stealing a fish from an adult. I’ll let Glo set it up:

I live along the Mississippi River and enjoy the Bald Eagles who come to spend the winter months near the dams for fish etc. I see lots of spirited competition and dropped fish that end up back in the river only to be caught once more, but I have never seen that sequence of events work out quite like this before.

Much thanks to Glo for sharing her wonderful photos of this amazing battle. As Glo says in her blog, this immature eagle will do well in the world.

In other photography news, yesterday I read about a bald eagle that was spotted on a Wolf Cam — but that’s not the remarkable part. The amazing part is that the bird had once been a rehab patient (as a tiny eaglet) eight years ago when its nest had fallen down and it was dumped into the river where it nearly drowned! The Raptor Education Group website has the wonderful story — and a really cute photo of the eaglet getting a blow-dry after it fell into the river. This kind of story surely warms the hearts of hard-working wildlife rehabilitators everywhere. Save an eaglet and see it go on to live a long life.

We recently heard from our talented photographer friend Woody Dawson (see his website), who photographs eagles up near the Susquehanna River. Woody passed along two incredible shots of his eagles, and we greatly appreciate him sharing these. Note that in the links below, I left the photos extra large so you can enjoy all the detail. In the first shot we see Woody’s eagle couple and get a good look at the “business end” of eagles — their talons. Eagles’ beaks are sharp, but it’s the talons that do most of the work and are the most powerful weapon an eagle has at its disposal. If you’re banding eagles, watch out for the talons! And in the second shot we get an excellent look at the eagle parent coming back with nesting material. “Honey, I’m home!”

And now for golden eagle news: On the Illinois Birders’ Forum someone posted a jaw-dropping set of photos showing a golden eagle going after a deer in a cornfield. Golden eagles are much more aggressive predators of large prey than our fish-loving bald eagles, and I’m sure this deer has a healthy respect for golden eagles now.

Bay Song

And last but certainly not least, we have a musical treat for everyone. Kathy Frischknecht — who is one of our cam watchers — enjoys wildlife photography with her husband (see their site), and they worked with a musician friend named Peter Fields to create a beautiful music video that combines their photography at Blackwater Refuge in Maryland along with Peter’s wonderful music.

You can view the music video on YouTube. Note that “Bay Song” was composed and performed by Peter Fields and can be found on his CD “Stillness of the Heart” available at CD Baby. Peter, who grew up in Maryland, found inspiration for the song through his love for the Chesapeake Bay area. You can also visit www.Peterfields.net if you’d like to know more about Peter and his music.

I really enjoyed Peter’s relaxing song in this video and also the scenes of Blackwater and our eagles. Thanks to Kathy, her husband, and Peter for allowing us to share this.

Until next time,
Lisa – webmaster
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We know our cam watchers are worried about our parents and their two eggs. The situation as it stands now is the Eastern Shore got a lot of snow and drifting due to the high winds. We hear the local roads are not in great shape, so our cam technician is having trouble getting to the Visitor Center to check our computer. We believe the power might have gone out in the storm (due to the high winds) and our computer just needs to be rebooted — which must be done manually.

As soon as the Visitor Center is open and the road to the VC is passable, our cam technician or ranger will go to the building and check the computer. We do have a power back-up device on our computer system, but it only lasts for about 30 minutes, so if the power doesn’t come back on in that time range, the computer needs to be rebooted. Once the computer is back on, we expect the cams will be operating again, as we don’t think any damage was done to our field equipment.

So when we get the Eagle Cam back online, what do we expect to see? Well, we hope a parent is on the eggs and we hope to see a relatively bare patch around the clutch when the parent stands up. This would mean the eggs were probably kept warm throughout the storm and the parents were able to keep the deep snow from taking over the whole nest.

As we’ve said before, we have very experienced parents at our Eagle Cam nest, and that has been a big advantage this season. As those of you who have followed our Osprey Cam know, young “newbie” parents sometimes bail in bad weather and don’t have the perseverance that older and wiser parents do, so I’m just glad we have a mature couple at our Eagle Cam nest, or the eggs might have been lost at this point in the season.

Other Eagle Cam Nests

As some of you may have heard, it looks like the NCTC Eagle Cam in West Virginia (at the National Conservation Training Center) is going to lose all their eggs. We hear the pair laid a second egg during the last snow storm and then laid a third egg during this storm, but they’ve been on and off the egg(s), so it doesn’t look good. As bad as our storms have been — and we have officially set a record in the Washington, DC area for the most snow recorded in a single season — the West Virginia folks have gotten it even worse, so we express our sympathy for the WV fans, as they’ve had rotten luck this year.

Some cam watchers have asked if more eggs could be laid — like after the snow melts a bit. It’s possible for a couple to lay a second clutch if their first clutch was lost early in the season, but we have to keep in mind that laying eggs is a drain on the female’s body, and she can only lay so many in a season. So after three eggs, there might not be more than one or two that the female could lay — at the most. But it is possible.

The Norfolk Eagle Cam appears to be doing well, and the last time I looked in they had three eggs, so I think they’re in good shape at this point. It certainly helps that of the three Mid-Atlantic Eagle Cams, they are the farthest south.

Several cam watchers have asked why some Mid-Atlantic eagles nest this early in the season, since it seems to carry such a risk with the weather. First, we don’t normally have this much snow — it is a record year. And second, experienced parents nest early because it means their eaglets will have more time to learn how to hunt and provide for themselves before the next winter. So there is some wisdom to the process, but it does carry the risk of unusually bad weather claiming the eggs.

Thanks again to all those who are watching and cheering on our family. We remain hopeful that we’ll have two eaglets hatching around the end of February.

Bird Walk Note: For those who were planning on attending our free bird walk on February 13, please note it has been cancelled due to the weather.

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

Now that our parents and two eggs have survived their second snow storm of the season, I thought it would be nice to post something fun to help soothe the nerves of our loyal cam watchers who worried and fretted for our parents over the last couple days.

We have several amazing video clips to share, but first I want to give credit where it’s due. We have a wonderful U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ranger at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, and his name is Tom Miller. Tom often pops a tape into the VCR at the Refuge for me, so that we can record some of the live video feed that comes from the Eagle Cam and Osprey Cam. Many of you have already enjoyed our video clips on our Blackwater Refuge YouTube Channel, and it’s thanks to Tom that I have access to these tapes in order to produce the clips.

Tom told me about a week ago that he thought he had captured the laying of our 2nd egg on tape. I had planned to go down to the Refuge and get the tape earlier, but then the last two snow storms prevented it. But recently I got the tapes in the mail, and low and behold we did get the 2nd egg laying on video — a first for the Blackwater Eagle Cam!

And so we’re very excited to share these clips with you. Note that these videos are also being offered on our YouTube channel for those who prefer to view them that way. For the clips below, left-click on the link to play the Windows Media Video file or right-click and choose “Save As” to download to your computer.

In the first video from January 23, we see an incubation switch as the mother returns to the nest to take over incubating the one egg. She settles into the nest cup and rocks herself back and forth in order to get the egg securely against her brood patch.

In the second video we see her on the egg, but if you look closely you can also see her back feathers ruffling and her sides beginning to heave a bit as she begins the process of laying the egg. This activity lasts a couple minutes, then she sits up slightly and begins to spread her wings out to her sides.

In the third clip we see her sit up even more and then check under herself a couple times as the egg arrives. The clip ends with her checking the new egg, possibly rolling both eggs, and then settling back down on them.

In the final clip we see the male arrive with some new nesting material. After the father places a stick on the mother’s back, she gets up to reveal two eggs — including the one that has just been laid.

We take our hats off to our parents. They really were amazing during this last major snow storm, and this video just makes us value the eggs they’re protecting even more. We hope our parents can continue to deal with the elements and bring us a pair of new eaglets around the end of February.

Technical Note
I did want to share one technical note as hatching nears: As some noticed, our website went down during the storm due to a power outage. If you ever notice that our site is not available — or if the cams are not updating — sometimes it’s helpful to visit WildCam.com. Wildcam is our partner in that we share our camera feeds with them, and sometimes their site is up while ours is down. You have to register to view the cams at WildCam, but it’s free, and you’ll see the exact same thing you see on our cams because it’s the same video feed.

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

While we’re patiently waiting for our eaglets to hatch, I thought folks might be interested in learning a bit more about our Eagle Cam tree. The tree that has hosted our camera for six seasons is a loblolly pine tree. Loblolly pines are beautiful, tall trees that are common at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, and they’re a favorite of our eagle population.

In Brooke Meanley’s excellent book Blackwater, he writes:

Though there are some big hardwood trees in southern Dorchester County — oaks, gums, and others — loblolly pines are invariably selected for nest sites. The pines are probably chosen not only because they are the predominant trees and the best life-form for a nest site, but also because pines usually grow closer to the marshes and open water, principal hunting grounds of the eagle.

Nest are constructed mostly of sticks, with a few clumps of sod, cornstalks (occasionally with ears attached), and if near a marsh, a few cattail stalks. In the Blackwater country, nests are usually lined with marsh grass. As material is added year after year, the core of the nest comes to form a sodden mass of vegetable mold. Sticks up to six feet in length have been noted in eagle nests.

Meanley goes on to describe a Blackwater nest that fell down and noted it contained some odd items, such as acorns and periwinkle snails (neither used for food), furnace clinkers, and muskrat traps.

Through the years fragments of nonedible food, the bones of muskrats, feet of ducks, heads of fish, skulls of birds, and other items, filter down into the interstices of a nest.

One fallen nest contained the remains of 35 muskrat, 8 waterfowl, several fish, 1 spotted turtle, 1 blue crab, and part of what appeared to be the skull of a red-tailed hawk.

Several years ago, Craig Koppie — an endangered species and raptor specialist from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — came to Blackwater NWR to collect a few bald eaglets that were being relocated to Vermont, where they’re trying to establish a breeding population. During his visit, photos were taken of Craig climbing loblolly pine trees where eagle nests with young were located. If you click on the links below, you can see Craig climbing the trees and you can also get an idea of how big an eagle nest is compared to a human male.

And as a final treat, here is a photo of our actual Eagle Cam tree. We happened to find this in our archives not long ago, and we knew our cam watchers would enjoy seeing the actual tree. The nest is bigger now, for sure, but it gives you a good look at the tree location. As a side note: Our camera is about 80 feet up in the air, which gives you an idea why we have to use a professional tree climber in order to do cam maintenance.

Weather

We hear that more snow is headed our way this weekend — it’s been one tough winter — so we hope our parents will continue doing their excellent job in keeping the eggs safe. And be sure to check in on the Norfolk Eagle Cam in Virginia, where their couple is also protecting two eggs at the moment.

Thanks to all those who have sent in photos. We’ll get the gallery updated this weekend.

Until next time,
Lisa – webmaster
Contact

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

If a third egg was coming, it would be here by now, so it looks like we have a two-egg clutch for 2010. This is the fifth time in six seasons that we’ve had two eggs, so it’s a common brood size. For those keeping score:

1st egg
Laid: January 20
Possible Hatch: February 24 or 25

2nd egg:
Laid: January 23
Possible Hatch: February 27 or 28

As for a description of our eggs, according to the Journey North eagle website:

“The eggs are dull white in coloration and may appear with some darkish flecks or staining. The surface of the shell is rough when compared to a chicken egg and the overall shape is rounder when compared to many bird species. On average, an eagle egg will measure 2.75 inches long by 2.25 inches wide, surprisingly small for a bird that will grow to have a six and half foot wingspan and weigh between 10 and 14 pounds before it leaves the nest in July.”

Our parents roll the eggs about once an hour to ensure that the embryo does not stick to the inside of the shell. This rolling is done with their talons in a ball, so they don’t accidentally puncture the egg. Each parent has a brood patch, which is a featherless area on their breasts that is infused with blood vessels and is sensitive to temperature, and they place the patch against the eggs to keep them warm. We’ve noticed our male eagle does not seem to mind sharing in the incubation, although we’re sure that sometimes the female eagle needs to call him back to the nest to take his turn.

As we watch our parents dutifully incubating over the coming weeks, keep in mind that the ultimate goal of incubation is to apply heat to the eggs so the cells inside will turn into vital organs, a beak, a tail, wings, etc. And even though our eggs are young, the little eaglets are already forming body parts inside the eggs.

I wanted to mention one other thing about our parents in this post. If you looked at our recent Eagle Cam Gallery update, you’ll notice one image where one of our parents has a pine sprig on its back. For those who have watched our cam in past seasons, you know this is a familiar scene.

We’ve noticed over the years that our parents enjoy bringing fresh pine sprigs to the nest. Sometimes they drop them off in the empty nest and sometimes they bring them in and place them on each other (see the video below).

Based on the type of trees at Blackwater, we’re guessing they’re loblolly pine sprigs. And our parents aren’t the only ones that exhibit this behavior. From the book Eagle’s Plume by Bruce Beans:

Far more curious are the fresh sprigs of pine needles that now-retired U.S. Forest Service biologist John Mathisen has found in virtually every [eagle] nest in northern Minnesota’s Chippewa National Forest. The sprigs are always white pine, even though red pine trees outnumber white pine there three to one. Does white pine have a chemical ingredient that repels insects? Does a pine sprig signal to a mate that this nest is the one they’ll use?

I have read that biologists also speculate the sprigs in the nest could be a way to let other birds know the nest is taken when the eagles are not around. But no one really knows for sure why the birds like having them in the nest.

We also don’t know why our parents like putting things on each other. We’ve seen them deposit sticks, grass, and pine sprigs on the seated parent’s head and back. Sometimes when one eagle does this, the other gets up off the eggs or chicks, so maybe it’s a tip that the other parent is ready to take over nest duties. But then again, sometimes the parent with the decoration on its back just refuses to get up. :-)

News from Blackwater Refuge

Last week, we heard from several cam watchers who said they enjoyed the winter photos that we posted in our web log entry, so we thought we’d share some more. In the first shot below, which is from photographer Jon McRay, we see two bald eagles on an osprey nest in the frozen river. The ice can do some serious damage to our water-based osprey nests, so they’ll likely require some repairs before the ospreys return in March.

And in the second shot, which is from photographer Bob Quinn, we see a Great blue heron, a couple Canada geese and several tundra swans on the marsh. And if you look closely, you’ll notice there is also an immature tundra swan in the shot (see the white bird with the gray on its face). Tundra swans migrate to Blackwater Refuge from northwest Canada and Alaska. You can read more about tundra swans and why their numbers are declining around the Chesapeake Bay on the Bay Daily blog.

And if you missed the link on the Osprey Cam page, be sure to check out Bob Quinn’s latest photos. Bob saw a huge number of eagles on a recent visit to Blackwater Refuge.

News from the Friends of Blackwater
Finally, we wanted to share some good news. Zeeger de Wilde — a long-time national wildlife refuge volunteer and a member of the Friends of Blackwater — has just won the national “Volunteer of the Year” award in the National Wildlife Refuge System. If you’ve visited Blackwater NWR during one of our festivals, you might have joined an Eagle Prowl led by Zeeger, or you might have enjoyed the lovely butterfly garden he helped create near our Visitor Center. During his very productive life, Zeeger has visited over 200 refuges, and volunteered over 12,000 hours at various refuges in the last 20 years. Few people are more dedicated to improving the National Wildlife Refuge System than Zeeger, and we offer him our congratulations and thanks. You can read more about Zeeger’s achievements on the National Wildlife Refuge Association awards page. Much congrats, Zeeger!

As a reminder, you too can help the Friends of Blackwater in our mission to assist the staff at Blackwater Refuge. Consider becoming a member of the Friends of Blackwater by visiting our Membership page. And if you are interested in volunteering some of your time, be sure to also visit our Volunteer page. No matter what activity you’d like to help with, training will be provided, and you’ll enjoy the benefits of working for one of the best refuges in the country.

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

As we mentioned on the cam page, on the afternoon of January 20, our female laid her first egg. On January 15, we had seen our couple mating on the nest, and all other signs were pointing to our pair getting down to business, and fortunately they did so rather quickly. Last year our first egg appeared on January 23, so the couple is a little ahead of 2009.

Based on past indicators, we would expect the egg — which is about the size of a goose egg and is dull white — to hatch around February 24 or 25. We would also expect to see another egg about 2-3 days after the first, and maybe a third egg, although we’ve only seen that once in our six seasons with the Eagle Cam.

Over the next month, both parents will share in the incubation duties, although the mother will do it the most. I did get a couple emails from cam watchers who became worried when they saw our parents off the egg. It’s common for raptor parents to delay incubation with the first egg. Biologists speculate it’s to make the first egg hatch closer to the other eggs. Once the second egg appears, the incubation will become more constant. I should point out that our eagle parents are very experienced, so we need to trust in their judgment regarding whether the egg is getting overexposed.

Eagles and Winter

We recently held our 2010 Mid-Winter Eagle Survey at Blackwater Refuge, and we had an excellent showing. According to the stats, we had 173 eagles in the non-roost count (morning) and 124 eagles in the roost count (evening), both of which were higher than the 2009 counts. We suspect our numbers were higher because of the especially cold winter up north and because of frozen waters around the Chesapeake Bay — which drive eagles to our Refuge and its waterfowl population.

We had noticed our Eagle Cam parents bringing birds and possibly mammals to the nest for their meals, but as the water at Blackwater begins to thaw a bit, we did see a fish dropped on the nest (probably by our male) right before the female laid her egg yesterday. Maybe the male knew what was about to happen and was bringing supplies for our female.

Speaking of this cold winter, I was at the Refuge recently and captured a couple photos that give you an idea what a harsh winter we’ve been having. Some of the water at Blackwater is open, but there is also a lot of ice, which is why our eagles turn to other types of food — and why our ospreys migrate!

Osprey Cam Update

Cam watchers have naturally been anxious to know when we will be fixing the Osprey Cam, since one of our birds pushed the cam down. One of the challenges of performing maintenance on the Osprey Cam is that the platform pole is on a dike, and it’s difficult for us to take large equipment (like our bucket truck) onto the dike when the ground is wet. Last year we almost had the bucket truck slide into the water because the ground around the pole was too soggy. We’ve decided that within the next month or so (before the ospreys return in March), we’re going to move the Osprey Cam pole about 30 feet — and closer to our access road — so maintenance in the future will be easier and will not require such a large truck to reach the pole.

So we’re making plans to not only fix the cam but to also move the nest pole and at the same time repair some of the rotted wood in the platform — which will make the whole nest safer for our ospreys. We appreciate your patience as we make plans and wait for the ground around the nest to get hard enough that we can go out and make these changes.

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

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