Late Friday in Bird World and all is well

25 March 2022

Viewers of the Decorah North Bald Eagle nest of Mr North and Mrs DNF were frightened today when 47 mph gusts hit the nest. Those winds will continue until tomorrow. Hatching is never planned and that little one is making keen progress from its pip this afternoon at 12:46. It is being rocked and kept warm.

In 2018 this nest collapsed. It was rebuilt and re-enforced so despite the winds, everything should be fine. Hope.

And then it snowed at Decorah North! The baby is hatching. Dad has come in to take over so Mum can have a break.

It is still unclear what is happening at the Sauces Bald Eagle nest on Santa Cruz in the Channel Islands. This is the nest of Jak and Audacity.

View of the egg this morning. It is getting more possible that the egg is non-viable. Too bad they couldn’t have one of of the 4 and one out of several triplet nests that have hatched.

If you missed it, the big news today is the discovery that there are four eaglets on the nest at the PA Farm Bald Eagles. This is extremely rare. I knew about 1000 Islands in Wisconsin last year. Someone wrote that Norfolk had four eaglets in 2011.

Congratulations to to Mr President and Lotus and the National Arboretum Bald Eagle nest. First hatch after 3 bare seasons. Here is the announcement.

Congratulations Mr President and Lotus. Meet the newly hatched DC8!

Thunder has been bringing in crib railing to the West End nest and wow, it is working in one area of the nest. Thunder watches to see if these three lively eaglets will remain contained!

Sometimes but not when Dad Akecheta wants to feed them the Cormorant that Mum brought in today. Sweet babies. Seriously sweet babies.

We are all going to have to get our worry beads out. These kids of Thunder and Akecheta’s do not sit still!

Sorry for all the videos. The wind doesn’t really show in the stills and it is nice to see the four eaglets bobble. In this last one for the day, put out by Cal Falcons, Annie and Grinnell get down to business. Eggs tomorrow? Sunday? Gosh, I hope the romance drama has settled out on The Campanile.

Since the last feeding right after 12 noon when Little Middle had a huge crop, a fish head was brought in at 12:59:56. River fed Big until 13:08:18 and stopped. Little Middle did not bother to go up. It was more than full and why set off Big? River moves up to the fish head at 15:01:11.

River steps on Little Middle’s head and he pulls back, frightened.

Little Middle looks up at the feeding at 15:16.

Little Middle isn’t quite sure what to do. He has looked eyes with Big. (Often never a good idea as it sets the larger sibling off).

At 15:16:48, River pulls the fish head between the two eaglets. It is now closer so she can feed Little Middle.

A bite to Big and then a bite to Little Middle.

Same again, one for Big and one for Little Middle.

Then several more bites for Little Middle. More for Big and then the feeding stops by 15:30. It was slow. Not much fish on the head. But slow is good. Big gets full faster!

At 16:50;56 River flies in with a teaser fish?? Like a 3 or 4 bite fish??

She offers the first bite to Little Middle who was the closest at 16:51:31. I am watching this live and have no idea how well that gesture is going to play out with Big.

At 16:53:59 Little Middle moves cautiously and with head down away from the feeding. Big has done nothing that I can see – other than her sheer presence – to frighten the little one. I cannot imagine what it is like being that so frightened.

River obviously likes this species of fish. She is taking big bites and eating them herself. I wonder what it is?

Big gets full at 16:55:59 and River begins feeding Little Middle off the fish head.

Little is still being fed at 17:10. Life is good. River returns to clean up scraps around 18:00. Feeds Big a few bites. Little Middle doesn’t bother.

I checked on Estonian Black Stork Karl II’s progress and note that he has flown west. I wish that he would fly a little more west and head to his home in the Karula National Forest through Romania.

On the 23rd of March, Karl was feeding at the north end of the Beysehir Lake in Turkey. I so wanted him to turn west and not go straight north to the nature reserves around Odessa in the Ukraine. He left that feeding area and flew NW! 285 km

Today, he flew 308 km. He is west of Istanbul, west of the Black Sea.

Here is another map. Will Karl II turn to feed along the shores of the Black Sea or will he continue to fly north away from the war in the Ukraine? If he continues to fly west away from the conflict this is quite wonderful. How did he know?

The sun is setting on another good day at the Captiva Osprey nest in Florida. Lena and Andy have done well. Both Middle and Little are getting beautiful juvenile feathering. So happy for them. There continues to be no word from the second lab on what suddenly killed Big on the 15th of March in the morning. You can clearly rule out some physical cause such as choking on a pellet. I believe you can rule out Avian Flu, too as the UGA Vet School would have been able to test for that.

Mum and Dad at the Port Lincoln Osprey Barge have been making more and more frequent appearances there. Both were on the barge today and on the 23rd I did get a shot of Mum eating a fish. Would love to see our Ervie again. He is staying close to home. Here is Ervie’s latest tracking.

It is a good day in Bird World (except for Sauces, sadly). Little Middle is going to sleep full even if nothing else appears on the nest. Big settled during the afternoon but Little Middle remains scared. That is probably for the best. He recovers faster than last week and has eaten almost all day.

Thank you for joining me. Take care everyone. I look forward to seeing you soon.

Thanks to the following for their streaming cams and/or FB pages where I took my screen captures: Captiva Ospreys and Window on Wildlife, Explore.org, Port Lincoln Osprey Project, Looduskalender, Dale Hollow Bald Eagles, Cal Falcons, West End Bald Eagles and the Institute for Wildlife Studiews, AEF NADC, and the PA Game Commission.