White Rock Eagles Day 1 Hatch!, Berry College Eagles Day 66&68 Calisthenics, Harrison Bay Eagles Day 22&24, Loch of the Lowes Third Egg!

Tons of s'caps of the White Rock hatch. I'm just going to put them in here without a lot of commentary...

Mom just moved half of the egg shell out of the nest bowl to the 12:00 position.

The talons are curled in so as to not injure the hatchling or damage the egg.

Mom returned from taking a quick break and let Dad know that he needed to move! Which he did...

Not sure if that's a piece of egg shell or a pip in the other egg.

Don't stand on that!

This was the first feeding attempt, but I don't think the baby got any pieces.

 

There's a nice crack showing in the egg. Where is zoomer!?!?!?

The stream has gotten really jerky. It's like a series of stills. That make it hard to tell if the hatchling has gotten any bites. But it has been offered plenty over the course of the day.

The bright white spot on the hatchling's beak is the egg tooth that helps it break out of the shell. It will disappear soon.

That looks like debris on the egg at the 3:00 position. But if you look at the bottom edge, you can see that it's uneven. I think that's where the baby has already broken some of the shell.

I have a short video from today. Calisthenics in the Nest. (1:27) I also got a bunch of s'caps from the Berry College nest today too. You know these eaglets are getting plenty to eat when they are ignoring so many fish in the nest. A lot of these are "buddy" s'caps and some self-feeding s'caps. Here's some playful beaking.

The eaglet is actually standing on two fish... It was hard finding a starting point, but the eaglet was successful in self-feeding.

I don't know what's up with this sudden glut of fish in the nest.

The Harrison Bay chicks have been about to thermoregulate for about a week now and don't need to be brooded. They will snuggle up together and be plenty warm enough. Still a big size difference.

The Scottish Wildlife Trust reports that the Loch of the Lowes Osprey laid their third egg today! I'll record the nest overnight tonight (which is their daytime) and see if I can get a s'cap for tomorrow...

Berry College Bald Eagle Nest on Hatch Watch!

I'm going to call it: Hatch watch is on at the Berry College Bald Eagle nest. Shortly before hatching, the babies start to move around in the egg. The air sac inside the egg is punctured and the baby gets its first breath of air. At this point, they begin chirping. I believe the baby in the first egg has begun to move around in the egg and is possibly chirping. Mom has been very restless starting last night, coming off the eggs more often and looking at them. She must have been awake a lot last night, catching up on some sleep this morning:

In this picture, she is up and checking out the eggs. Not really doing an egg roll, but paying attention to them. I'm thinking movement and/or sound coming from the eggs.

Babies have an egg tooth on top of their bill. As they turn inside the egg, it cuts the shell and once the cut goes all the way around the baby can emerge from the shell. This is a long process. The first sign that hatching has begun is a pip hole. I actually typed the above in preparation for posting this later today. But I just saw a nest exchange: Dad has come in to incubate while Mom takes a break. I'm not sure if this is a pip hole or if it's debris on the egg. I'll be looking for it again and see if it moves with the egg during a roll or if it's gone... This is Dad on the left and Mom is backing out of the nest bowl. The possible pip is in the center of the top egg.

Just the eggs... Is that a pip?!

Dad is getting ready to settle down on the eggs:

There has been some concern about Mom Berry's leg/foot this year. She has seemed ok to me. Regardless, I had a chance to take this picture of her when she hopped up onto the branch to take off out of the nest. She seems ok to me.

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...