Ron and Rita are a bonded pair of Bald Eagles living in Miami’s Dade County. Last spring, a bald eagle chick fell out of its nest and was rescued on 13 March 2021. Its nest had been destroyed by a very bad storm. The chick had surgery and was released back into the wild in August of 2021. At that moment, they realized that something should be done to try and help the parents who repeatedly had their nest destroyed by storms. So together, Ron Magill Conservation Endowment and the Wildlife Rescue of Dade County decided to build them a stable platform – just like is done for Ospreys. Everyone waited and hoped that the couple would take to the new nest along with its camera!
The eagles are Rita and Ron. Rita is banded and Ron is not. Rita hatched in 2011 making her 11 years old this spring. Her and Ron have been together since 2015.
For several days the Bald Eagles were unsure of the platform. Then they flew in to look at it and to everyone’s amazement, they began to bring in nesting material. No one spent the night at the nest until Rita returned on Thanksgiving when she laid her first egg. Three days later she laid another and three days after that she laid a third!
The first two eggs have hatched. R1 hatched around 22:00 on 1 January and R2 hatched on 2 January.
They are both doing well and being fed while everyone waits to see if chick 3 will hatch soon (and survive).
You can watch Rita and Ron and their chicks here:
Check them out everyone! This is the only Bald Eagle nest in Miami Dade with a camera and these are experienced parents. Let us hope that this nest survives any storm that comes their way!
Thank you for joining me tonight. Take care. See you soon.
Thank you to the WRDC streaming cam at the nest. This is where I took my screen captures.