Berry College Bald Eagle Nest Chick Day 24 and 25, White Rock Bald Eagle Nest, Bald Eagle HK, Bald Eagle Smackdown

It's a great time for screen captures at the Berry College Bald Eagle nest. (A lot of s'caps!) These are from yesterday 3/18 -- day 24 for the growing chick. Mom came in with this big fish while the baby is failing miserably trying to get under Dad to stay warm.

Chicks at a very early age point their rear end over the edge of the nest when they need to poop. As time goes by, you will notice more and more "white-wash" on the sticks that protrude from the nest and the supporting branches of the nest tree. This is one second before pooping.

The chick, home alone, keeps intently looking up...

 

 ...at one of the parents perched above the nest (top left of picture):

The parents are finally putting in some crib rails. Unfortunately, I think some of their sticks have fallen over the edge of the nest. (When I take a screen capture, it freezes the video while I select the area to capture. Then after I grab the capture, the video resumes at what's currently happening, so I miss a few seconds of the action -- and there have been a few times that the stick is gone when the video resumes...)

That's a big bite being offered to the baby. But it's capable of taking larger bites now.

They keep futzing with this stick. But it's caught on one of the nest tree's branches. But they keep trying to move it...

This is what's left of Mom's big fish after one feeding with the baby:

The baby is nipping at Mom's foot here. I'm not sure why...

 

 At this age, the food coma comes on pretty often:

But there's another feeding around the next corner... Here's another big bite:

I just liked this picture. It's like Mom and Dad are sharing a secret...

It looks like there's feather plucking going on back there, but I can't really tell. The baby is taking notes...

It turns out that it was some mystery prey that was brought to the nest. Doesn't look like anything with feathers...

You can see some additional sticks have been added around the edges. The baby is going to start venturing out more and more and needs to be contained until it is a bit more stable.

Mom is a lot more stable now, but she still stretches out her left leg pretty often. And baby is stretched out too. So cute!

More stick work...

These s'caps below are all from today, 3/19, day 25 for the chick. This is Mom keeping the baby warm early this morning. It looks like the grasses are piled up a bit helping to keep it warm.

Feeding, feeding, feeding! Food is plentiful and this chick is NOT going to go hungry!

Mom came in with a big hunk of soft grasses. You can see it right in front of her, on the camera side of the baby. I think part of their efforts to keep the baby safe, along with putting in crib rails, is building up the soft grasses to keep the baby in the nest bowl until it's bigger.

 

 Is this a yawn? No. The baby opened its mouth and then looked up. It was moving food from its crop to its stomach. You'll see the parents do this too...

I swear, this is 30 seconds later. Food coma!

Sleeping with leg and wing stretched out.

The baby has watched Mom and Dad and learned how to move grass around the nest. Several pieces got rearranged by the baby...

Stick delivery! See that big stick right behind the baby's head? That's a nice size stick!

I think the mystery prey yesterday was squirrel... Looking back at those pictures I can see that the tail wasn't as recognizable because it was viewed on edge, but today it's flat.

See how intently the baby watches the parent land in the nest? The baby watches what the parents do as part of learning how to be a Bald Eagle.

This is two seconds after pooping. I'm going to catch a poop one of these times!

 

This s'cap is to show the additional crib rails. Still a lot more work to do.

Here's a link to a video of the Berry Nest from this morning posted by eaglewhisperer18. It's got a lot of great footage. There's Dad delivering a Coot and Mom removing the feathers. The baby watches this closely. Then, the baby does a poop shoot, which is so powerful that it falls on its face:

 

 It then transfers some food to its stomach. Then Mom feeds some of the Coot to the baby. Mom eats the Coot's head, beak and all. That's the entire Coot's head in her mouth -- what a size difference! Watch the video I linked to above to see just how easily it went down...

This is another video of the Berry College nest taken by eaglewhisperer18. I didn't see this when it occurred today and am puzzled by this behavior... And I love the look on Dad's face! I'm glad I saw this video! This one is less than 2 minutes.

I took some screen captures of the White Rock nest today. It's nice that they still have great daylight after I get home from work. I couldn't stream that nest at all yesterday. And now today it would at least show a still picture and freeze... (I have DSL and my phone lines are buried and it's been raining all week, which degrades my service.) Here's what I got -- such a pretty setting:

 If the White Rock nest is going to have a 2nd egg, I'd expect to see it today. However, I wasn't able to get a look because my video kept freezing...

There is a new post about Bald Eagle HK, along with some great pictures. Jim Yanello is helping Pam Monahan while she's out of town. Thanks Jim!

Mary Reid Barrow has a column about a Bald Eagle Smackdown that happened recently in Chesapeake.