Writer, Conservationist, Activist, Bird Lover
3 April 2026
The first pip for Jackie and Shadow has been confirmed.
@FOBBVCAM
!pip 10:03:03 Pip Pip Horray, we have seen a pip! Please look at our Facebook page for more information.
Congratulations. I know where everyone is watching…28,762 people right now waiting for this special eaglet including Jackie and Shadow.
Thank you to the owners of the cam and the chat who have confirmed pip.
31 December 2025
Good Morning Everyone,
It’s New Year’s Eve – or Old Year’s Eve – depending on where you live and celebrate (or not). One of the traditions for New Year’s Day in my family was to eat black-eyed peas. It was believed that if you did not consumme them on the 1st of January your year would be full of tragedy. Believe me, I have two large tins of them and everyone I know is going to eat some!
Let’s start with some sad news and move on to the good…the final necroscropy results for SE36 indicate that lovely sea eaglet was healthy when it died and it was a little boy.
Everything appears to be going well with NE 32 at the NE Florida nest of Gabby and Beau. And guess what? NE33 has a pip. Gabby and Beau did great delayed incubation – let’s get these kiddos to have a good, even start instead of being hatched days and days apart. Fingers crossed.
When you watch the streaming cam notice the tender looks that Beau and Gabby give to their little baby. It is ever so sweet.
Yes, NE32, you are very, very cute.
This image is courtesy of the American Eagle Foundation showing the pip in N33.
One of the oldest eagle couples in the Channel Islands (if not the oldest) is Chase and Cholyn. They are preparing their nest for this breeding season. SK Hideaways has the news and the video.
Cholyn flies in in his tight black jeans! Have a look: https://youtu.be/GOApBZhGIb8?
One thing that’s easy to forget is how quickly these little ones grow. From hatch to fledge for a peregrine falcon is 40-43 days! Bald Eagles can be longer, averaging from 10-14 weeks with most taking their first flight around 12 weeks. What does this mean for us watching? We can’t blink!
SE26 is going to be an only child with two of the most incredible parents to teach it everything it knows to become a thriving eagle living in the wild.
Looks like CE14 at the Captiva nest of Connie and Clive is also going to be an only. No worries about food. Clive keeps that nest stocked.
R9 and R10 at the Dade County nest of Ron and Rose appear to have settled down a bit. This is the nest I would like to see a pantry full and waiting – it is the only nest with two eaglets save for Superbeaks that had three and lost Froto.
Thank you so much for being with me today for this quick check. Please get one thing that gave you joy from the nests to me so that I can post it with the others on the 2nd of January. Nothing is too small. You only have to write a single sentence but join in the fun! Take care everyone.
Happy New Year to each and every one of you.
Thank you to SK Hideaways for their video, to the AEF for their image, and to the owners of the streaming cams and individuals who posted news on FB groups. My blog would not be the same without your contributions.
Hello Everyone,
Today Don is being moved from one room to another and will eventually have his own private room with a window – I hope – later today. The constant change is difficult for many people. He prefers everything to be the same and for no bright lights or noise! I can relate to that! Toby and The Girls are fine and Nellie is going home in a couple of hours so I can begin to process all of this.
I am looking out the window, and there are the usual 33-35 European Starlings and one nice fluffed-up Blue Jay looking for food. It is there! It is actually a lovely day with no wind and temperatures of -8 °C.
Here are two screen captures of Gabby and Beau’s pip:
I just wanted to pop in and encourage you to check on the NE Florida nests while you are watching the eaglets at SW Florida, Dade County, and Captiva – and, of course, Girri, flying around the tower.
Be sure to send me the moments you enjoyed on the nests in 2025 so I can get them on the blog for the 2nd of January.
All the best!
Thank you to the American Eagle Foundation for their streaming cam so we can watch the lives of Beau and Gabby at NE Florida.
4 November 2025
Hello Everyone!
Oh, get yourselves ready. A pip was spotted on one o Gimbir and Diamond’s eggs at the Charles Sturt University falcon scrape in Orange, Australia. The time was 0627. It is Day 37 for the first egg laid!
My heart is starting to beat just a little aster. I hope that yours is too.
Rumour has it that little chirps could be heard at 0857! Diamond is restless but not giving us any clues as to the progress.
Thank you to Charles Sturt University for their streaming cam that allows us this great privilege to watch Diamond and Gimbir welcome their first chicks together!
29 September 2022
Good Morning Everyone,
The news coming out of Sanibel/Captiva is not good. (see below) Our thoughts remain with all of those who were so heavily impacted by Hurricane Ian.
In Manitoba we continue to take in the full beauty of autumn with a temperature of 12 degrees C. And it seems that today, I will have hydro in the conservatory. Just in the nick of time as nighttime temperatures continue to drop near the freezing point. All of the Crows and Blue Jays continue to come to the garden and it will be a few weeks til we know whether they will winter here or leave.
In the Mailbox:
Lots of people are asking: Is there any news about Captiva Ospreys?
As you probably know Sanibel/Captiva took the direct hit of Hurricane Ian when it hit landfall at 155 mph. There is no communication between Captiva and some of the images coming out of Channel 8 news in Florida touch on the devastation. The individual who owns the property that the Captiva Bald Eagles and Ospreys have their nest is Lori Covert, a Canadian from Nova Scotia. Lori has reported that Captiva is under 12 feet of water and there is no communcations. It will be some time before things are restored because sections of the causeway are completely wiped out. Access would be by boat or helicopter.
The video clip is Sanibel.
Making News:
Catastropic damage to the number of birds and raptors due to the climate crisis.
Nest News:
There is nothing like a trio of ‘full to the brim’ osplets to set your mood to ‘excellent’. That big fish that Dad brought into Port Lincoln certainly started the osplets off on a good day, too. The cam operator obliged by giving us some fantastic close ups of the three. Look carefully at their plumage.
You can easily tell the three osplets apart. Big Bob has lost almost all of its down on the head and back. The back of its head is black on top with a copper bottom. Middle Bob is losing its down on the head and Little Bob is not yet started like the other two.
Soon Big Bob will look like its dinosaur relative. Poor thing. I feel sorry for it with all those itchy feathers.
Look closely. See the coppery colour plumage coming in below the black on Big Bob. You can also see the pin feathers coming on the wings and back.
Little Bob is still soft and sweet. He is beginning to remind me a bit of Ervie.
Those beautiful baby blues of the osplets will change to an amber and then yellow when they are adults. One exception that is know is Monty, the infamous Welsh Osprey, whose eyes remained amber.
In this image you get a clear look at Big Bob in the front and Middle Bob with its huge crop in the back. Little is in-between. Middle is one to keep an eye on – not sure it will not turn out to be the dominant bird. We wait to see.
They all had a good feed. There was another feeding and this time Little Bob got caught behind the two big ones. He tried to get up so that Mum would see his beak but to no avail. Little Bob will not starve. He has had lots of fish this morning and no doubt, he will have more!
The next feeding came at 1550 and Little Bob was right up front. He ate and ate and quickly went into a food coma. And then..there was another feed around 1830. It seems that Mum is keeping them absolutely packed with food until their crops could pop. Then she sits on them! That is a good way to stop any fighting nonsense.
The rumour has it that there are three pips at the Melbourne scrape box.
The Sea Eagles are still in the nest, hopping and flapping. They are big and beautiful and so very healthy. It seems like they just hatched yesterday and now in week 10 they are all grown up. They can fly. They just don’t know it yet.
We are now in Pip Watch for Diamond and Xavier. The time from pip to hatch varies from 24 hours to 72. Dr Cilla Kinross, the lead researcher at Orange for the falcons and their angel like Dr Sharpe is to the Channel Island Eagles, cleaned the camera yesterday at 1518. Diamond had a look of surprise in her eyes. She must be used to Cilla coming and going over the years because that look in the falcon’s eyes was all that happened.
All eyes are on Melbourne for a hatch today and for pips coming at Orange.
Thank you so much for joining me today. Please take care of yourselves. See you soon.
Thank you to the following for their streaming cams where I took my screen captures: Channel 8 news, Port Lincoln Ospreys, 367 Collins Street by Mirvac, Sea Eagles@Birdlife Australia Discovery Centre Sydney Olympic Park, and Charles Sturt Falcon Cam.
It is a gorgeous Christmas morning over Big Bear Lake in San Bernadino County, California. This is the home of Bald Eagle couple, Jackie and Shadow. What a beautiful view as the sun rises to wake up the forest and the animals that live around the lake.
A little later the camera operator gives us a treat by panning around the area where Jackie and Shadow live.
Jackie and Shadow have been delivering some nice (some large) twigs to the nest. This wonderful couple live in the hope of hatching eaglets and we send them positive energy as we hope with them.
Harriet and M15 might be wishing for a little bit of the cooler northern Californian weather in Fort Myers. The couple began ‘listening’ to their eggs last evening. It is pip watch!
About four days before hatching, the eaglets will grow their egg tooth. Imagine it as a sharp spike facing outward towards the shell on the tip of the beak. The little ones will chip away at the shell. They will take their first breath and continue picking away until they have broken through and hatched. This whole process can take up to four days.
Last year Harriet and M15, fledged E17 and E18 – the twins that won all of our hearts from their first bobblehead days, to going into care for conjunctivitis, to their return. Beautiful fledglings. Best friends.
I am so glad that Samson and Gabby did not lay their eggs at the same time as Harriet and M15. This way we will get to enjoy having two nests of bobble heads independent of one another! Last year, Gabby and Samson had one hatch, Legacy. S/he turned out to be a beautiful and formidable juvenile.
Gabby is on incubation duties.
Anna and Louis are also incubating two eggs and have a wait similar to that of Samson and Gabby. Their nest is in the Kisatchie National Forest in Louisiana. This is the couple’s second breeding attempt. Last year they fledged Kisatchie, the first eaglet hatched and fledged on this nest in central Louisiana since 2013. Wow. Cody and Steve have installed sound at the nest this year.
It was fun watching Anna and Louis last year figure out what to do as new parents. Louis is a fabulous provider. When he is not loading the nest down with fish, he is aiming to give Anna the softest Spanish Moss he can find for the egg cup! Just look at it.
Clive and Connie are incubating two eggs over at Captiva. They have had some terrible weather there lately and this image is from yesterday. The camera appears to be down this morning.
Clive is a new mate for Connie. Last year, Connie and Joe hatched two eaglets, Peace and Hope, who died on the nest from rodenticide poisoning.
One of the ospreys over wintering at Urdaibai in the Basque Country of Spain waking up to Christmas morning.
While many of the Ospreys are opting to stay on the Iberian Peninsula instead of making the long journey down to The Gambia or Senegal, there are still celebrations as the December count along the Senegal coast was 1100 birds this year. Jean-Marie Dupart did an amazing job going out and counting all of the beautiful fish eagles. Thank you!
Closer to home, Jack and Diane have been working on their nest. Some really nice strips of bark have been brought in. Last year, the pair fledged three for the first time: Sibling 1, Sibling 2, and the miracle bird who survived against all the odds and became dominant, Tiny Tot Tumbles.
Cilla Kinross is celebrating the third camera at Charles Sturt Falcon Project. There is a ledge and box camera and now one that shows the falcons flying around the outside of the water tower. Congratulations, Cilla.
Here is the link if you wish to check out the new tower cam:
Big Red and Arthur have been spotted out hunting so all is well with the Red-tail Hawks on the Cornell Campus. Hope to have images I can post for you shortly.
The countdown is on for all the hawk and osprey fans…three months til Big Red is incubating eggs and three months til the first arrivals of the Western Ospreys back in the UK. Oh, and the beautiful storks of Latvia and Estonia. May they all stay safe until then.
Wishing all of the birds who bring us such joy, extra prey items, good weather, and safe flying.
Thank you for joining me today. No matter what holiday you celebrate, I hope that you have a peaceful, joyful day, with something a little special. For those birds not with us today, we thank them for the happiness they gave to us – and as one of my readers ‘B’ so eloquently said, ‘and all they taught us.’ So true. Take care. See you soon.
Thank you to the following for their streaming cams where I took my screen shots: Friends of Big Bear, NEFlorida Eagle Cam and the AEF, SWFlorida Eagle Cam and D Pritchett Family, KNF Eagle Cam, Captiva Eagle Cam, Urdaibai Biosphere Osprey Cam, Charles Sturt University Falcon Cam and Cilla Kinross, and the Achieva Osprey Cam.
Note: Port Lincoln Osprey Cam is down or we would all get a look at those lads!
