There was a food fight at the Berry College nest today. I've noticed that food at this nest becomes a little scarce once the coot leave the area. I haven't seen many food deliveries recently. I only saw one yesterday. Fortunately, the decrease in food supply comes after the eaglets have gone through their growth spurt. Today, the eaglets get a small food delivery. There's a rush to claim the food, mantling, and self-feeding. There's also a lot of give and take between them (and some "you'd better back off!" posturing) as the siblings fight over the morsel. I finally got some good side-by-side footage of these eaglets -- I think one is female and one is male. Here's a link to the food fight video (20:56). Yes, it's long. But if you start watching it and get bored, turn it off. But I think you'll like it! Here's some stills taken from the video. When the parent lands, the smaller (male?) mantles and grabs the parent's foot. The food was actually dropped in front of the eaglet.
The eaglet figured out where the food was and bends to start eating as the other eaglet (closer to the cam) and the parent (farther from the cam) peer to see what's happening.
Here's part of the food fight.
Some other s'caps from today. The eaglets want to get out into the world and spend a lot of time staring off into the distance.
Why do they have to stand on the weak edge of the nest!?!?!? They make me worry so much! I have seen an eaglet fall out of a nest... (That was Dad Norfolk's daughter/new mate Bald Eagle HE. She fell out of the nest when she was wingercizing and hop flapping from one side of the nest to the other. She overshot the edge... She about gave me a heart attack!)
This s'cap shows their size difference...
That is an impressive wing span! Can you believe that only two months ago, these two were hatchlings?
The Harrison Bay chicks have their thermal down now, which is darker than the natal down they hatched with. They are putting on some size.
I brought up the Africam Black Eagle cam just now (almost 1:00AM East Coast) and it's their sunrise. Beautiful light! Worth staying up for, but I'm going to pay for it tomorrow...
It's also daylight at the Osprey nests that I follow. And someone is home at the Dyfi nest...
...as well as the Scottish Wildlife Trust's Loch of the Lowes Osprey Nest.
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