Berry College Eagles Day 48&50 Big Fish and Rain, Harrison Bay Eagles Day 4&6 Full Pantry, White Rock Eagles Still Incubating, Loch Of The Lowes Osprey Adult At Nest, Africam Black Eagle Nestorations

There was another huge fish brought to the nest today. Well, it would have been huge if it still had its head... Dad is panting with the effort of carrying the fish to the nest.

Mom arrived shortly after Dad and landed on the front branch.

One of the eaglets was allowed to make some feeble attempts at self-feeding. They haven't learned yet to stand on the food to get leverage while tearing off pieces. It's coming...

Dad is still panting.

Dad left and Mom hopped down into the nest to feed the eaglets.

Around 5:00PM it started to rain. You can see the rain beading on Mom's back:

One of the babies tried to hide under Mom while the other stayed topside, flapping and shaking its tail feathers. You can see that some of the tail feathers have lost their sheaths. When the pin feathers appear, the sheath is the white part you can see in the picture below -- each feather emerges from a sheath. Then when the sheath is no longer needed, it dries up and falls off, helped along by preening. I believe this is the older eaglet since I noticed the other has more tail feather sheaths still.

The other eaglet eventually came out to play in the rain.

But then it started raining harder and they decided they didn't like it after all...

I see a little face peeking out.

Mom had been staying low in the nest, because it got windy. (They can get blown out of a nest.) But then she raised up to try to provide more protection to her babies. Such a good mom...

The Harrison Bay nest seems to be doing great. The pantry looks full during this break. Mom is stretching everything to her right, her wing, leg and tail. The pantry is the area behind her.

Babies!

What a nice, clear picture on this cam. Sleepy-head!

 

Later, Mom was trying to sleep. But you could see the babies in front of her and it looked like a wrestling match. I don't know how she slept with that going on...

She's actually only cat-napping, keeping aware of her surroundings. Zoomer gave us a close-up of the pantry. You can see the fish behind Mom. That whole area is crawling with bugs. Yuck!

The White Rock eagles are still incubating their two eggs. Two more weeks and this nest will be on hatch watch!

The Scottish Wildlife Trust's Loch of the Lowes Osprey nest has someone at home tonight. As you may remember from my previous post about the Lady of the Loch, the resident female amazed everyone last year when she returned to the nest on 3/31. This year, a different female has been at the nest and making herself at home. We'll see if Lady returns (at the ripe old age of 30) and reclaims her mate and territory, or if Laddie will have a new mate.

The Africam Black Eagles don't look too comfortable to me. But, I guess this is how they sleep when not spending the night in the nest.

A bit later and the IR cam is turned off and color returns. One of the adults has moved to the nest. I always assume it's the female, but it could be the male. Zoomer has framed the cam so the waterfall can be seen on the right.

And we got some close-ups as she tests the fit of the nest bowl...

...and arranges the nesting material. She rearranged that bit of green in front of her several times. I think it ended up in the same spot!

Pretty scene. I love the color of the cliff face. Even the white-wash is pretty...

This does not look comfortable. But she's been like this for 5 minutes and is where I will leave her...