The second hatched sometime over night.
I notice this AM (Sunday) about 8 that the 2nd hatching is not getting food from Dad. At least I assume that is Dad who swooped in, helped out a bit, then left again.
Thanks to Pied Piper for the great video!
There’s a bald eagle’s nest a couple of blocks away from here. I was just out on the patio and I could see one of the residents flying around. It always amuses me that the ‘U-S-A! U-S-A!’ bird has such a wimpy-sounding call.
Most likely, although eagles do share responsibilities.
You can tell which one is the female, because she has more pronounced light-colored edges on her back feathers, and because she is noticeably larger than the male.
I’ve been watching this off and on all weekend. I briefly got to see the mother feeding one of the chicks and both the eagles at the nest at the same time. I just checked back in and I could see both of the chicks. Fascinating stuff!
It’s feeding time! Fish for supper!
Here’s NPR’s coverage: D.C. Eagle Cam Captures Second Eaglet Emerging : The Two-Way : NPR
Boulder County in Colorado has a webcam for an osprey nest located near Longmont (about 30 miles north of Denver) – the male osprey that was in the next last year returned over the weekend. He’s been in and out of the nest several times this morning.
It’s also a great feed for listening to redwing blackbird calls.
Obligatory Far Side cartoon: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/ac/ab/26/acab2640ac5e9c68593f981bb62881e2.jpg
I’ve been discovering over the past few days that there are nest cams all over the place. One of my favorite sites so far is the Cornell Lab of Ornithology site, which has a half-dozen cams linked up. I really like watching the Great Horned Owl nest from Georgia, but there’s also an Albatross from Hawai’i, Barn Owls from Texas, Red-Tailed Hawks from New York, Barred Owls from Indiana, and bird feeder cams from New York and Ontario.
Other eagle cams i’ve found include:
Channel Islands National Park here in California (four different nests)
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
Pennsylvania Game Commission
I still keep coming back to the DC cam, though. Last night, while i was watching, the mother was feeding the chicks, and then decided that dinner time was over. She basically stropped feeding, stomped the chicks down unceremoniously with her feet, and sat on them. It was pretty funny.
Very cool – thanks for posting those links. The owl ones are of particular interest to me, although they’re all worth visiting. It’s fun to take a couple minutes’ break and have a really great view of nature.
We had fun a few years back watching a peregrine nest that was located on the outside of the Buffalo, New York courthouse. It is interesting to see that parents are parents no matter what the species. They get tired, grumpy, and impatient just like we human parents. But they can be surprisingly tender, as well.
Here’s some highlights from National Geographic on the Washington eaglets: National Geographic
It looks like the eagle was trying to break the branch to made it fit in the nest better. They’re beautiful birds.
My family and I visited the National Arboretum yesterday. The visitors center has the same real-time feed on a big-screen TV, and the guides are happy to show you where the nest is. A nearby access road is closed to vehicles, and you can go several hundred yards in on foot before there’s a barrier and you can’t go any further. We could just see the nest in a very tall tree on the top of the hill, but lacked binoculars and couldn’t see any of the eagles with the naked eye. In the few minutes we were there, we also saw neither of the parents take to the skies. Still cool to be there.
The eagles I mentioned in post #12 have had two chicks hatched recently.
Explore.org has a couple of eagle cams too.
In fact, they have a TON of critter cams.
I’ve been following the Decorah Bald Eagles for years, and the first of three eggs hatched early this morning.
I’m curious who was the first to do this. The Duke Farms eagles I’ve been referring to are the first ones I heard of. There has been a webcam watching them since 2008.