Nest Cam Round-up: White Rock, Africam Black Eagle, White-bellied Sea Eagle, Dyfi Osprey

The White Rock eaglets really appear ready to fledge to me. These s'caps were taken from the wide-angle cam.

They are pretty comfortable on a branch now. Notice the one eaglet is dangling a foot.

Then I switched over to Christian Sasse's live broadcast.

It cracks me up when they do this. I was so happy I caught this moment!

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I don't know what's up with the bug-eyed look...

This is one of Christian Sasse's photos of this nest, posted here with his permission. Beautiful, huh?:

I got to see the Africam Black Eagle this morning. This baby is growing like a weed. I don't see any feathers coming in yet, not sure when that happens with these eagles.

I caught some interesting nest action this evening at the White-bellied Sea Eagle nest. First some s'caps and then a big paragraph about this nest this evening. Dad brought Mom a fish. He's closer to the camera and the fish is under his left foot.

Mom really wanted that fish! She made several attempts to take it. Here, Dad has his left foot lifted out of the way.

She finally succeeded in taking the fish from Dad, who had been playing it cool. "Fish? You want a fish? I don't see a fish..."

Dad is hanging out in the shade while Mom eats.

OK. That's a bit too much shade.

Here's a piece of video of this interaction. They archive video of this nest every three hours. So, the length of this video is 3 hours. But I noted the time this happened so I could send you to the right spot! So jump ahead to the 2:39:00 (2 hours 39 minutes) point of the video (the time stamp at the nest reads 12-07-2014 08:59:00). Mom stands up and Dad lands in the nest with a fish for her. This is a good piece of video because we get a good look at the eggs, we get a good look at Mom and Dad, and we get to hear Mom. We also get some take-offs and landings! Anyway, Dad just stood there on the fish and I think she really wanted it! I don't think these eagles are very vocal. But the racket she put up is something to hear! Now I know why the people in chat call it squonking! (The video isn't synched up with the audio, so it looks like bad lip synching. Eventually, there are also ravens. But the squonking is Mom. There is also some high-pitched crying now and then -- Mom.) By 2:44:00, she's got the fish and has settled down to take care of business and Dad has flown the nest. At 2:49:38, Dad comes back with a very graceful landing and settles down to incubate their two eggs. At 2:55:10, Mom takes off to stretch her wings and powder her beak. That's a good 16 minutes of video of this nest to watch. Check out the whole thing or jump to the interesting parts I've detailed above.

I was able to check out the Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust's Dyfi Osprey Project nest this morning when it was daylight there. I'm not sure which adult this is:

Then tonight, I caught a late night potty break.

"What'cha doing?" -- "Preening" -- "Of course..."
(My point is that they spend a lot of time preening...)

I am going to be out of town for a couple of days. I suppose I'll miss the fledge of the White Rock eaglets... I will catch up upon my return.