The Eagles.

[Tanked]

 

Meet Bonnie and Clyde.
I have about 60 screen grabs from my newest online addiction: Bald Eagles!
We switched from winter to summer for one day this week, so I finally made a day trip to try to find the nest, and some walking.  Located in a private nature preserve; the eagles will continue to remodel the nest all season, and finding the giant nest is easier than finding the preserve itself.  The preserve located in an industrial area on the Ohio-Kentucky border is open to the public and if the river isn’t up; it offers some easy hiking.  

I found the Cardinal Land Conservancy's  site last year, and when I remembered to check the live cameras this year,  it is probable that I was watching as the first egg was laid.  Unfortunately it looks like there will be only two eggs this year. 
Their behavior and vocalization can be quite interesting if you have the patience to wait and watch. For some reason, the live cameras are not in sync. and there can be a lot of buffering.

[Guppysnail]

That is amazing. Thank you for sharing!

[govsfabshop]

We have a pretty large nest in a massive and pretty much dead tree next to the tractor supply store in the town i work in, they sure are a sight to see!

[jwcarlson]

Two eggs is higher than average, I believe.  I used to work at a place that had a bald eagle nest on-site and they'd put up an eagle cam to observe them.  Pretty neat to watch.  The size of their nests is impressive.  

[Tony s]

Fantastic! we have actually started to get them coming back to our area (north central Indiana) in the last 10 years or so. Which is impressive because we mostly have corn fields here.

have seen them just sitting on old wooden fence posts, kind of like you'd see red-tails do. had one perched on a road-side snow bank a few years ago, right next to my house. 

Edited March 4 by Tony s

[Andy's Fish Den]

I am lucky enough to have an eagle nest just off my property along the river. I can look out a front window or stand on my front porch with a pair of binoculars and watch the nest. The pair has been busy working on he nest, adding sticks and stuff to it, I think that eggs have been laid already, as it appears that the parents are taking turns sitting on them. there is no way of seeing how many as the DNR doesn't have a camera up on the tree or anything. Each of the last two years they have hatched out two babies, it is cool to watch them grow, birds grow so quickly. 

[TOtrees]

Cool! There is such a strong connection between bald eagles and aquatic habitats, they are very much aquarium-adjacent if you think of things that way. Our tanks are mini-ecosystems replicating natural aquatic habitats. Some of those habitats are what baldies rely on through various parts of the year, and varying by region of course. 

Their population recovery started slow after the pesticide DDT was banned in '72, but has reached a point where they're recovering/increasing faster now. The connection between aquatic habitats and pesticides affecting bald eagles in particular was insidious. DDT is a long-lasting insecticide (which is a big part of why it's so effective at controlling mosquitoes) that made its way into aquatic food chains. Many chemicals pass through living organisms, but DDT biomagnifies, meaning all the DDT in the insect food that a fish eats stays in that fish, and so on up the food chain. At the top of many aquatic food chains, and as consumers of medium and large fish as well as waterfowl and plenty of carrion, eagles accumulated catastrophic levels of DDT in their bodies. The greatest impact wasn't mortality but thinning of their eggs' shells. For years on end, parents would lay eggs, only to break them when they incubated. Pairs went for years producing few to no offspring. Recruitment of young birds into the population ceased and populations crashed as adult birds died off without replacements or progeny. The same thing happened at the same time for the same reason with peregrine falcons, also heavily reliant on foods from aquatic habitats (their old-timer name is duck hawk), and they too are recovering, also slowly. 

Enjoy the viewing, and the good news it represents. Environment-good-news is too rare these days. 🙂

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@govsfabshop @jwcarlson @Andy's Fish Den @Tony s @TOtrees The ODNR reports 3 nests in my local county, and 900+ in the state. This is up from 4 nests in 1979.  I haven't found any other live cameras.   There was a third egg last year, and one of the fledglings was blown out of the nest. but survived.  If you watch the live feed, there can be a lot of movement on a windy day.  I live in an older neighborhood, so while I will not likely see an eagle nest we have lots of squirrels, and a growing Red Tail population.  I have a yearling raising hell around my bird feeders.  

Rather than staring at the screen hoping for something to happen, I often have just the audio feed running in the background.  The Bortz preserve gives access to a local marina, next to an airport, across the river from a train crossing. Bonnie and Clyde aren't bothered too much by barge traffic, trains, plains, and the occasional hiker or construction equipment.  Most of the time you only hear the wind, flocks of geese, song birds or the sound of a wingtip hitting the camera.  On the other hand, I find the business jet taking offs to be very irritating.🤬

I originally mentioned that their behavior is interesting to watch.  Their behavior often resembles human couples.  Bonnie is constantly rearranging the furniture, and showed obvious irritation when Clyde hit her in the head with the latest stick he brought home.

 

 

 

[jwcarlson]

I kind of get a chuckle out of the novelty of bald eagles to other parts of the country.  Here in Iowa along the Mississippi River we see so many of them that they're just another bird, really.  It's not uncommon to see a hundred of them.  Sometimes 20+ in a single tree.  I know this was not always the case and I do appreciate that they've recovered so well.  

It's also not uncommon to see this majestic bird eating a dead hog or cow that a farmer threw out in one of his fields over the winter.  😄  Or eating road kill.

[Tanked]

On 3/6/2024 at 11:25 AM, jwcarlson said:

I kind of get a chuckle out of the novelty of bald eagles to other parts of the country.  Here in Iowa along the Mississippi River we see so many of them that they're just another bird, really.  It's not uncommon to see a hundred of them.  Sometimes 20+ in a single tree.  I know this was not always the case and I do appreciate that they've recovered so well.  

It's also not uncommon to see this majestic bird eating a dead hog or cow that a farmer threw out in one of his fields over the winter.  😄  Or eating road kill.

long ago, I was amazed when I saw my first local eagle resting on a branch alongside the expressway in another industrial zone.  I had no idea they were in the area.

Now, and definitely later when the eggs hatch, watching this nest might be difficult for the queasy.🤢

[lefty o]

On 3/6/2024 at 10:25 AM, jwcarlson said:

I kind of get a chuckle out of the novelty of bald eagles to other parts of the country.  Here in Iowa along the Mississippi River we see so many of them that they're just another bird, really.  It's not uncommon to see a hundred of them.  Sometimes 20+ in a single tree.  I know this was not always the case and I do appreciate that they've recovered so well.  

It's also not uncommon to see this majestic bird eating a dead hog or cow that a farmer threw out in one of his fields over the winter.  😄  Or eating road kill.

they are becoming semi common. im in mn, and remember when i was a kid in the 70's it was extremely rare to see one. as a kid i never saw turkey vultures, and now they are all over. many people have no idea eagles are just as much a scavenger as they are hunters.

[JettsPapa]

On 3/6/2024 at 11:15 AM, lefty o said:

they are becoming semi common. im in mn, and remember when i was a kid in the 70's it was extremely rare to see one. as a kid i never saw turkey vultures, and now they are all over. many people have no idea eagles are just as much a scavenger as they are hunters.

Turkey vultures were very common in my area years ago, but have just about disappeared.  The black headed vultures (I'm not sure of the correct terminology) have migrated up from Mexico and displaced them.

Turkey vultures wait for an animal to die.  If an animal is too injured or weak to get away or fight back the black headed ones will just start eating.

Edited March 6 by JettsPapa

[jwcarlson]

On 3/6/2024 at 10:57 AM, Tanked said:

Now, and definitely later when the eggs hatch, watching this nest might be difficult for the queasy.🤢

There was some minor outrage when a house cat and eventually at least part of a whitetail deer fawn made its way into the nest on camera.  That's nature, folks!

[lefty o]

On 3/6/2024 at 12:02 PM, jwcarlson said:

There was some minor outrage when a house cat and eventually at least part of a whitetail deer fawn made its way into the nest on camera.  That's nature, folks!

some people do get worked up about that kind of thing, but thats nature. she's a cruel one!

[Tanked]

 

The second Eaglet (foreground) hatched late Friday night or early Saturday in time for a Carp Dinner.

Clyde is late again, and Bonnie is unhappy.

[Tanked]

Looking a little more like eagles.