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...