Berry College Bald Eagle Chick Day 22, Bald Eagle Hunting Coot, Screen Captures From The Northeast Florida, Southwest Florida, and Hays Bald Eagle Nests, The White Rock Bald Eagle Nest Has Their First Egg



It was a wet morning at the Berry College Bald Eagle nest. It's day 22 for the chick. Mom Berry did her best to keep the chick warm and dry:

The nest is in the upper left corner of Georgia, with clearing skies moving in from the west:

Mom Berry was trying to feed the chick here. The baby was shivering. This is worrisome since I've never seen a chick so cold that it was shivering.

Mom settled back down over the baby and I was relieved. She looks miserable... Probably not, her feathers provide a lot of insulation. But I would be miserable if I looked like that!

A friend asked me about what was in the nest. This is nestovers (leftovers)... I see three Coot feet here, so this is leftovers from at least two Coot. I've seen them leave the leg bone and feet for last.

Shivering uses up energy, so I was glad to see the baby being fed once the rain let up. This is Dad Berry. Notice how nice and dry he looks compared to Mom Berry? I've noticed at a variety of nests that the Moms stay on the nest and get soaking wet and then after the rain stops the Dad shows up and he's nice and dry...

Mom returns to the nest and Dad leaves:

Mom takes a turn feeding the baby:

The baby doesn't really have much wings to tuck its head under:

I think this is Dad trying to fit that big baby under him:

I'm not sure if those are pin feathers starting to show along the wing edge:

Mom was trying to feed the baby something stringy.  It's some part of a Coot. She spent forever trying to tear a piece off. She couldn't get small pieces to tear off, so she kept feeding the long strings to the baby. The baby would swallow some of it down and then Mom would grab the end and pull it back up. Here's a tug of war with stringy stuff -- from her foot to her beak to baby's beak:

Family picture, with Mom and baby playing tug of war with stringy stuff and Dad on the right:

Dad is just starting to spread his wings and take off from the nest:

Here's Mom with a big glop of stringy stuff in her mouth. She could not get a small piece torn off to feed the baby no matter how hard she tried!

And slapping the baby upside the head with it didn't help!

Mom ended up eating it in one gulp...

My friend pointed out this article in Mary Reid Barrow's column about Bald Eagles hunting Coot.

The Southwest Florida Bald Eagle chick branched this morning. I have no idea what is in the nest below the chick... Does anyone know what that object is?

The Northeast Florida Bald Eagle nest has one chick in pancake mode:

They could have the Hays Bald Eagle nest on a loop for all I know, it's always the same thing:

The White Rock Bald Eagle nest has their first egg. This is such a beautiful nest with the water in the background. The parents did a horrible job last year. They kept leaving the eggs unattended and eventually a juvenile came in and broke one egg. Then the parents abandoned the other egg. I don't know what went wrong, if they were just both inexperienced or what. (Here's a link to all of my blog posts about this nest.) I hope they do better this year... In contrast to the Berry College nest, the White Rock nest has great guard rails already! I didn't get a s'cap of the egg yet, but here's the view from the different cameras, so pretty! This is the Close Up cam.

This is the Wide Angle cam (it's late evening -- getting dark...):

This is the South PTZ cam: