Berry College Eagles Incubating, Harrison Bay Eagles Incubating, Northeast Florida Eagles Day 45&47, Southwest Florida Eagles Day 11&12 Wingercizing, Upper Mississippi River Eagles Incubating and Mating Video

I did a tour of the nests that I follow. Here's what's happening:

Berry College Eagles continue to incubate their two eggs. Today is day 28 and 31 since the eggs were laid. Expect hatch watch to start when the first laid egg is at day 33, but with delayed incubation I wouldn't really expect to see a hatch until day 34 or 35...

The Harrison Bay Eagles have only been incubating their two eggs a little over a week. So, they still have a while to go... 

The Northeast Florida Eaglets are growing in their feathers.

They are wingercizing now.

I caught the family together at the Southwest Florida nest. Dad brought in some soft grass and placed it between him and Mom.

It rained later in the day, and Mom-brella kept the babies dry.

It is so hard to see any eggs at the Upper Mississippi River nest. I caught a nest exchange, but still couldn't see anything. I think they have 2 eggs. If they will lay a third, it will be tomorrow.

This is the best shot of any possible eggs after recording this nest for about 5 hours today. It looks like one egg is visible. There was a point today when no eagles were on the nest, and no eggs could be seen... It must be a deep nest bowl. Maybe they will position the camera better next year...

I did find a video that the Stewards posted of mating at this nest. I wondered if there was competition between the two males to father the babies and found out that there is. Check out this video.

Southwest Florida Eagles Day 2&3 Brood Wars

I've got a few s'caps from today from the Southwest Florida nest. It was such a rainy day. Here's Mom, during the overnight hours, trying to make herself as large as possible to shield her babies from the rain.

Mom did a feeding during a break in the rain.

Here's a gif of Mom shaking off the rain.

Dad came to the nest while it was still pretty dark. He wanted to take over brooding the babies. But Mom didn't want to give up the nest. There was a "conversation" and they settled the matter. Here's a link to the Brood Wars video (14:48).

Dyfi Osprey Day 82,84&85, Harrison Bay Eagles, White-bellied Sea Eagles Day 17 A Wet Mess

The Magpies were at the Dyfi Osprey nest again today. One is in the nest and one is in flight. There's an Osprey on the left arm of the back perch.

Dad brought in a fish. Dad is to the back right, one of the babies is in front of him taking the fish. And another Fledgling is landing in the nest.

 Nice mantle with the fish.

The cows wandered into the field behind the nest.

The Harrison Bay Eagle parents spent the night in the nest tree. This early morning view of one of them is the only Bald Eagle that I saw today.

It was a rainy morning at the White-bellied Sea Eagle nest.

One of the chicks appears pretty dry, the other looks a bit wet.

Then we see that one in front is a wet mess.

Mom is trying to keep them dry, but it gets more and more difficult to cover them as they grow.

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...

Berry College Eagles Day 26&28 -- Rainy Day, Mom Eats a Coot's Head and Feeds Stringy Food, White Rock Eagles

It was a rainy day at the Berry College Eagle nest. Mom spent most of the day trying to keep the chicks dry:

I've got a couple of videos from today. Some things just can't be seen as well with still pictures. So for this year, I got SnagIt so I could offer videos...

This first video is Mom swallowing a Coot's head whole. I don't know how she does it or where it goes! Coot's head video. (1:16) Then, Mom tries again and again to feed something stringy to one of the chicks. Stringy food video. (1:45)

I've also got a video of the White Rock nest. I started recording the White Rock nest to show how windy it is there today and they started panning the camera right as I started to record. It turns out that dad was on a nearby branch. They showed him for a little bit, then the cam returned to show Mom in the nest, swaying in the wind. This nest is on egg watch! Here's a link to the video. (3:00) I also took a couple of s'caps to show the camera views this year. This is the close-in cam:

And this is the wide-angle cam. This is the one they panned in the above video.

Berry College Eagles Day 20&22 - A Rainy Day

It was a rainy day today at the Berry College nest. Mom is having a really bad hair day...

Here's a link to a video of Mom drying off. (4:13)

Here's are links to a couple of funny videos of the Berry College Eaglets that other people have posted:
Dad forgot B5 (1:48)
Mom gets christened (4:02)