Nest Cam Roundup: AEF, Two Harbors, Sooner Lake, Alcoa, Duke Farms, Alcoa Osprey, Fort St Vrain, Harrison Bay, NCTC, Blackwater

The AEF chicks are getting big under the watchful eyes of their parents. Here, the chicks are in full pancake mode while their parents watch something fly overhead:

The Two Harbors chick is full grown. All that's left now is to build up flight muscles over the next couple of weeks in preparation to fledge:

The Sooner Lake babies look great. I caught them up and about today:

The Alcoa nest presents a challenge when trying to get a screen capture. This is pretty much just a silhouette -- and I only got that after much time and effort...

The Duke Farms eagles are full grown too. Here, one is sleeping with its head tucked under its wing while the other is in pancake mode:

The Alcoa Osprey chicks are getting so big so fast. All three chicks are in this screen capture. One is harder to see because it is laying down at the 7 - 8 o'clock position...

The Fort St Vrain eaglet is also full grown, with at least a couple more weeks before it will fledge. The overhead cam still has a smudge on it. It's hard to see the eaglet with the side cam when it's in pancake mode...

I checked in on the Harrison Bay nest, but it was just an empty nest on the cam. Off-cam? Branching? Too early for fledge... Update: A late night check shows one of the eaglets is back in the nest. Not sure where the other one is tonight. It could be spending the night on a branch...

The NCTC nest is on fledge watch the end of this week. This is the earliest one might fledge. It could still be a few weeks. I caught them at dinner time today:

The Blackwater eaglets have fledged. After eaglets fledge, they still spend quite a bit of time at the nest. Their parents still bring food to the nest while the young learn how to forage from their parents. Here, I caught one hop-flying over to its sibling:

Nest Cam round-up: Blackwater, Alcoa, Duke Farms, Fort St Vrain, Sooner Lake, AEF, and NCTC Eagles and the Alcoa Osprey Nest, Harrison Mills Egg Tooth Video, Camellia and NX Locations, Find Momo

I made the rounds of the cameras today. I'm mentioning when each nest might fledge. I'm going with the soonest date we might see a fledge, keeping in mind that it could be a couple more weeks before they fledge. At the Norfolk nest in 2009, HK fledged early and HH (Azalea) took forever to fledge. HK was the second hatch and he fledged on 6/3. HH was the oldest and she fledged on 6/13. The youngest, HE, fledged on 6/8. (If you aren't familiar with that nesting season: HE was doing some hopping/wingercizing and fell out of the nest. When the tree climbers went to put her back into the nest, HK spooked and fledged early. I speculate that HE was next to fledge because she had lost her fear after falling from the nest. When she fell, an observer on the ground said that she dropped like a rock and at the last minute put out her wings and glided to the ground. So, she had kinda already fledged and didn't come to any harm...) So there can be a lot of variation for when they fledge -- I've seen 10 - 13 weeks as the estimate.

The Blackwater babies seem to be doing great. They hatched at the end of February, so they are on fledge watch now. But it could still be some time before they fledge:

The Alcoa eagle cam is presented from a different perspective than pics I've posted before. They had a problem with the camera and had to start using an alternate camera. They couldn't fix the other camera without disturbing the nest. But the eaglets are big enough that they can be easily seen with this camera, and could fledge before the end of May:

I had to be very patient, but I finally got this great picture of the Duke Farms eaglets posing with one of the adults. They will be old enough to fledge in early June:

This is the remaining chick in the Fort St Vrain nest. It could fledge around the first week of June. Here you see it learning how to be an eagle, watching one of the adults as it flew out of the nest. I was so glad I caught this moment. I always think it's neat to watch how closely eaglets observe their parents:

The Sooner Lake eaglets are going to be old enough to fledge by the end of the month. Some interesting things in the pic below. You can clearly see the transmitter on the back of the upright eaglet in the left-hand screen and you can see the antenna for the transmitter on the same eaglet in the right-hand screen. I also caught this one with the nictitating membrane covering its eye. You can see its sibling in pancake mode behind it, with its head visible past the crop of the one that's upright.

Here's the same view a few seconds later without the nictitating membrane (after the blink):

The AEF babies are being well-cared for. I think having this breeding program for captive Bald Eagles is wonderful! This picture shows the dark feathers on the back of the Mom's head. I mentioned in an earlier post about Bald Eagles in captivity not always getting their full adult plumage. I'm not sure how old she was when she was injured, so I'm not sure if that's the case with this eagle. But I think it's interesting that she has all those dark feathers despite being an adult at least since 2002 when she took a mate. Here, the two babies are in pancake mode:

The NCTC eagles played hard-to-get today. I did manage to get a pretty good picture of one of them. The earliest fledge for this nest would be a few days before the end of the month.

The camera round-up wouldn't be complete without the Alcoa Osprey nest. I was happy to get such a great picture of the two babies:

It has been a while since I looked in on this nest. So you can imagine my surprise when a third head popped up!

Hancock Wildlife got some amazing video of one of the Harrison Mills chicks hatching. In the video, the chick is still inside the egg and you can clearly see the egg tooth. (Great job Zoomer!) The egg tooth is a bump on the top of the beak. The first air that a chick breathes is when the egg tooth punctures the sac at the large end of the egg. After that, they need to break the shell to get outside air. (If you notice an adult listening to their eggs when hatch time is near, it's because the chick can now make peeping noises.) They have a special muscle in the neck, called a pipping muscle. As the chick moves around in the egg, it breaks the shell with the egg tooth. Within a few days of hatching, the egg tooth disappears. This video is way cool! Here's a link to the video and here's a picture I captured from it:

 Here's a pic of Mom incubating. I like how her wings are spread a bit so you can see how far up her back the white feathers reach.

Camellia has checked in. It's amazing how much these birds like landfills and golf courses!

NX checked in today. She is still exploring Aquia Creek!

The 5/9 "find Momo" made me laugh. And it took me FOREVER to find Momo in the 5/10 pic...

The Stupidity Regarding the Bald Eagles at the Norfolk Botanical Garden, Camellia's Location, Feathered Photography, Screen Captures of Eagle Cams at Sooner Lake, Harrison Bay, NCTC, Two Harbors, and Blackwater, and the Alcoa Osprey Nest, Super-sized Crabs, Sand Kittens, Wildlife Injured by Cats

First, I'm going to have to address the latest news regarding the Norfolk Botanical Garden Eagles. The Feds have endorsed the action that has been taken so far at the Garden to keep the Eagles from nesting there. These people are painfully stupid! How long is it going to take for them to realize that Bald Eagles are territorial and that they are not going to leave the Garden? They are wasting a lot of time, energy, and money trying to get the Bald Eagles out of the Norfolk Botanical Garden instead of making sure all wildlife is clear of the airport! How are they going to feel when a Great Blue Heron, Gull, or Goose takes down a plane while some idiot is shooting paint-balls at the Eagles in the Garden? Talk about a lawsuit waiting to happen! One of the worst parts about this is that our concern for safety at the airport is being written off because we are being viewed as a bunch of eagle huggers.

There is a new location for Camellia. He is still exploring Chesapeake.

Ron Dudley's post today on his Feathered Photography blog is of a Prairie Falcon. This is a beautiful bird and Ron got some amazing pictures of it. In the last picture he posted, there is incredible detail in the underside of the wing. Simply beautiful!

Screen captures! 
If you remember, Sooner Lake started with four eggs that hatched. It is very difficult to successfully raise a brood of four. The last two to hatch did not survive. The first two, that hatched on the same day 3/19, look great:

The Harrison Bay eaglets hatched on 3/19 and 3/21. So, they look similar to the Sooner Lake pair. I had to wait forever to get this screen capture. They were being fed, screen right, and I could only see the tail ends as the adult was off camera. Finally, they finished eating and made their way back to the nest bowl. Look at the crops on these chicks! They are very well fed!!

I've got a couple of pictures of the NCTC eaglets. They hatched on 3/16 and 3/17, so they are just a little older than the previous nests. These two also have bulging crops. The one in face-plant position has a crop that is visible at 1:00 position in relation to its head:

I'm including a second picture of the NCTC nest. If you've ever seen an eaglet in the nest poop, you will recognize this pose. They almost do a headstand in order to send their poop over the side of the nest. Trees containing Bald Eagle nests end up "white-washed" as the nesting season progresses. In the below picture, the eaglet that is standing has its head down at the 7:00 position and its butt is in the air at the 1:00 position. You can always tell when they are getting ready to poop because they move around and back up toward the edge of the nest. This is instinctive behavior.

The Two Harbors nest has one chick this year, hatched on 3/25, who is a little younger than the nests shown above. This chick was snuggled up to the parent for most of the time that I was watching this nest, but I was finally able to get this capture. I'm glad to see so many full crops!

The Blackwater Eagles are far older than the rest of the nests presented here. This pair hatched 2/26 and 2/27. What a difference, huh?!

I also spent some time with the Alcoa Osprey nest. At one point, the male came in with a huge fish (missing the delicious head of course!) and couldn't shake it from his talons. The female had to grab it with her mouth and pull it off of his foot. She then flew away with it. You can also see the egg in this picture. There is a picture-in-picture close-up of the nest bowl. The upper part of an egg is visible. I'm excited about this nest! I watched the VIMS Osprey Cam last year and the nest failed. Two eggs were laid, but for some reason they stopped incubating... So, I'm really excited and am hoping to see some offspring in this nest.

A recent news story about super-sized crabs caught my attention. I thought, "Yum, super-sized crabs!" But then the story reveals that they aren't very meaty. And they are so hungry that they are wiping out oyster beds. Not great news for seafood lovers.

I've never heard of sand kittens. Four were born in captivity in Israel. They have been extinct in that country since the 1990's.

Speaking of cats... Ed Clark, the president and co-founder of the Wildlife Center of Virginia, has often commented about the great number of injured wildlife they see at the center due to cats that are allowed to run free outdoors. Recent research indicates that house cats are more prolific killers than previously thought. I don't think people intend to have their free-roaming cats killing song birds and bunnies. Maybe it's something you should think about if you let your cats run free...