Berry College Bald Eagle is Attacked By An Owl

Much excitement last night at the Berry College Bald Eagle nest. Mom looked up a couple of times and it made me think that she heard something. But I didn't really think anything of it... She was doing an egg roll when suddenly something swooped across the nest, toward the camera. Scared me! Here's a video of the attack. This is a really good video, it shows the time leading up to the attack and how she kept looking up. At time 22:42:50 the attack happened. I think it startled me even more because I was already holding my breath -- scared that she was going to roll right out of the nest! (You'll see what I mean if you watch the video.) I also found a slo-mo video of the attack. Since this happened at night, and since the Great Horned Owl is a predator of eggs and babies, my first thought was G'Ho. But the attack happened so fast! Then I saw this picture that the college posted. Looks like an owl to me! They have also opened up the archive of the approach cam. This is 3 hours of video. Just go to the 18 minute mark. You can see the attack at time 00:18:10. (If any videos stop and start a lot, you can pause the video and let some of it buffer and then hit play again for smooth play-back.)

Mom ended up to the right of the egg bowl:

She made her way back to the egg bowl -- another harrowing event. I was worried she was going to step on the eggs (watch the videos above...) After she settled back down onto the eggs, she kept calling, but Dad Berry never showed up. If this had happened at the NBG nest, Dad Norfolk would have been in the nest in a flash. Not sure where Dad Berry was and I'm kind of disappointed that he didn't help defend the nest. Here's Mom Berry calling after the attack:

She was wide awake after the attack, this s'cap taken 20 minutes later. She is not relaxed at all:

 
And look at that scowl. She looks pretty angry.

OK. That's all I've got about the attack. Earlier in the evening, I had taken some other s'caps. First, Mom was passed out -- face plant mode:

Then she stood like this for a bit and I thought something might be tickling her belly!

This is what I saw when she finally backed off of the eggs. These two pictures were taken 2 minutes apart. I could have sworn that I was seeing a crack in the bottom egg and that it was changing. But, that could be a piece of the soft grass lining the bowl and it might have been moving with a breeze... And since there wasn't a hatchling in the nest this morning, it was probably grass, darn it!

So, that was yesterday after I had already done a blog post.

Today, I noticed that the view on the cam is different. It turns out that this is a PTZ cam. Well, at least it's a zoom cam. Here is a s'cap of the full frame. (You can compare this to the full frame s'cap I posted of sunrise on my 2/17 post - 4th pic on the page. See how much more of the tree and surrounding area you can see in the sunrise pic? They also have a new logo in the bottom left corner that I like.) It turns out that they have zoomed in so we can see the eggs better now that it's hatch time. I wish they'd tilt up a little so the adult's heads aren't cut off:

When Mom Berry is in the egg bowl, she uses her left wing as a crutch for her gimpy left leg. I'm a little worried about her and the youngsters that should be here any time now. She is coming close to stepping on eggs. What's going to happen when the babies start getting under foot? She is so unsteady these days...

Mom and Dad share a moment. She must not have needed a break because she didn't get up and Dad left.

Mom likes to pull the grasses in close after she gets situated. Sometimes, she ends up getting it on herself instead.