Berry College Eaglet Day 36, Second Hatch At Hays Nest, White Rock and Two Harbors Bald Eagle Nest, Southwest Florida Bald Eagle Nest Still On Fledge Watch

The Berry College Eaglet is 36 days old today. I saw it standing several times today:

Getting the feel of spreading its wings while standing up. This is not the best s'cap in the world. But you can see the feathers coming out at the tip of the wing closest to the camera:

Even standing to poop:

You can see the feathers coming out of the shafts at the tail now:

This is a well-fed eaglet. Look at the size of that crop! (The Eaglet has its head turned away from the camera. The crop is the round part sticking out to the left.)

The eaglet spent the rest of the day relaxing and trying to stay cool:

But the work for the parents never ends. Here's another stick being brought into the nest for crib rails. I don't think these parents are very good at placing the sticks. I bet there are a lot of sticks on the ground under the nest:

The second chick has hatched at the Hays nest. When I first brought up this cam today, the parents were working together to feed the babies.

Here's a shot of both babies (one is lower in the nest and facing left in front of the one facing the camera):

When I looked in later, Dad was on the nest and Mom had just arrived. She looked at Dad, wanting to take over.

But he didn't move. So she laid down next to him, pulling some of the grass in close. (Mom is sitting quite a bit higher because she is not in the nest bowl and she's bigger than Dad. But she is laying down here.)

 

Eventually, Dad left and Mom resumed incubating the remaining egg and keeping the babies warm. She must be tired -- in this picture she is taking a nap.

 

These two parents are very dedicated. Last night, they had a winter storm and Dad came to the nest and huddled next to Mom, helping to keep the babies warm. Check out Eagleholic's post and picture. I really like this pair. They have built a great nest with great guard rails. They are very dedicated to each other, huddling together to keep warm. And it looks like they feed the babies together, which should help cut down on any bullying. We'll have to wait to see how well that works after the third chick hatches... Some nests have problems with bullying while other nests don't. I remember Mom Norfolk laying down on the chicks (brooding) if they started to act up. So there were never any bad problems at that nest.

 

It looks like a beautiful evening at the White Rock nest:

 

Yes, I was switching cams when she turned in the nest. Darn it!

 

 

Mom is still awake at the Two Harbors nest. I'm going to have to look on a map and see why it's full dark at Two Harbors and dusk at White Rock. I thought they were both around the same longitude... Anyway, here's Two Harbors this evening:

 

The Southwest Florida Eaglet still hasn't fledged. It is 95 days old today. Bald Eagle Azalea was slow to fledge at 84 days. The Southwest Florida Eaglet is really slow to fledge. They go when they are ready...