Well that’s that. Three eggs, three chicks, and now three juveniles off into the wide world. The eagle cam is shut down until next year.
I enjoyed the heck out of the whole thing, even the anxious parts when we couldn’t see one of the chicks for a while and fretted about them. I checked the camera just today, actually, and it was simply and quietly focused on an empty nest.
With a bit of luck, they’ll all live to end up looking like this guy.
Handsome devil, ain’t he?
So, take care you guys, and with luck we’ll check in with mom and dad next year.
I’ll take the sticky off this post just as soon as another one goes up, at which time it will disappear into its chronological timeslot. I think.
That camera, according to the stats, got an amazing number of views over the last months, and you just know there were lots of positive thoughts directed toward that little family. There’s something hopeful about that, y’know?
Not to mention that we all now know one hell of a lot more about eagles than we did at first. No way that can be Bad Thing, right?
Hmmm. Looks like Mr & Mrs Eagle are about to experience the teenage weeks. If you think their heads are white now, just wait until June.
I’ve just caught the eldest of the chicks flapping his wings and doing hops across the nest.
That’ll be fun when they’re all doing it…
They’re fucking huge now. Just missing white heads. Been a month and a half now, nearly.
Did they fly away? Two days ago they were big, sure, but they didn’t have enough feathers to fly.
Seems like we’ve got a different nest now, covered in snow and no more chicks, but maybe some new eggs?
I haven’t been able to get the eagle cam up all morning, and can’t seem to get the ustream site up either.
3 large snoozing eaglets (are they still eaglets now? When do they officially become eagles?). No snow. All seems to be well.
I think I remember my wildlife biologist friend Jim say they are eaglets until they fledge, then juveniles until they get their adult plumage. Baldies don’t get that white head and tail for quite a while, I don’t remember how long but maybe a couple of years or so.
As I suggested earlier, having their own eaglets is what turns their heads white.
tommy,
heh heh
As so often, you have the cart before the horse.
(if you’re gonna feed me straight lines that good, wtf am I supposed to do?)
Also; I looked it up, it takes 5 or so years for the full adult coloration to emerge. Other fun facts are: they have no vocal chords, and make their calls via a bony syrinx in the trachea; they can lift and fly with a 4lb load, so keep an eye on your chihuahua; they can live for 40 years; they mate for life; their skeleton weighs about a half a pound—the feathers weigh twice that— with the total weight around 10 – 14 lbs.
Wingspan on an adult female is over 7 feet and their eyesight is legendary—they can spot a rabbit moving from a mile away.
Glad our triplets are back. Was kind of eerie looking into the wrong eagle bedroom, seeing it all covered in snow. They must have cams on another nest somewhere further north or higher up.
The kids are huge and solid brown now, and they look to be doing fine. Rather unfortunate pair of ads though – the first featured a family of squirrels, and the band ad at the bottom was for firearms.
yup, getting real big. They’ll be sneaking out at night soon and wanting to borrow the car.
Guess mom and dad had better lock up the liquor cabinet when they go out grocery shopping.
Or better yet leave the liquor cabinet unlocked, but water down all the liquor.
Does anyone know how long they remain at the nest after they start to fly?
Apparently:
Same site also says the females are larger, and often kill any male siblings early on. So ours must be particularly good at keeping them sated with meat. Or maybe all three are female?
(or else it wasn’t a very reliable site, always that possibility).
I was the only boy with too many sisters. I was the eldest which gave me a bit of a leg up in the survivability odds, but gawd knows they can be dangerous. At some point though, you do start noticing their friends.
Tommy
Surely a man can’t have too many sisters.
heh, heh. Hopefully they don’t spot my post.
Oh dear Bluth. I was actually sort of wondering out on my walk today how they learn to fly, and now that 40% stat has me really kind of bummed. Don’t think i could bear to lose one of our kids that way.
I only see two eaglets. Hopefully the third is just out of camera range
False alarm. The third hopped back into view
I guess they’re beginning to fly. The camera is concentrating on the big branch leading from the nest.
Just seen what I assume is the oldest chick fly back to the nest. It was panting!
Another one is rising a foot or so above the nest, but hasn’t quite got its nerve up…
Just gone 9 am here. Wee small hours there. Pitch black and tipping down with rain. One eaglet sitting all on its own in the nest. It looks really lonely!
Oh no! Can’t bear to look.
i see 2.
Just saw all three, beating their wings and beating up on each other. One seems to be comfortable flying up the branch and perching there. Then ma or pa arrived with a small fish, which one of the chicks pounced on and did NOT share.
Whew.
Gunny -
I got a malware warning for this site now due to the ustream video. Dunno what that means.
Amy,
It means it’s a nest of predators?
If you happen to be a squirrel anyway.
Believe me, I’d feel just as much solidarity if they were ripping up porn stars. Maybe even a little more…
PS
Yeah, you’re not the only one. My mailbox was full this morning about that.
Looks like the warning is coming from Google, but they haven’t actually found anything. I don’t know what that means either. Maybe it’s the first move in a hostile takeover?
No malware here on my iMac, and nothing reported from the host servers, who monitor constantly also. I’m checking around further as we speak, but I think we’re good.
Natty-
Have at me.
Gunny -
I only get it on this thread, and on the blog overall with the eaglecam at the top. I don’t get it when i click on another thread. However, i’m not going to click on the eaglecam though, and i’d maybe advise against that or clicking on the ustream site itself. I didn’t get the warning earlier when i left the comment about the eagles.
I googled eaglecam and found one site where you can watch the eagles with no warning, and one other that had the warning. The google page about ustreamtv says they have been classified suspect but that no malware has been encountered by google in the last 30 days.
It also says hackers sometimes ad tags to make it register as a dangerous site even when it isn’t.
I’m thinking those squirrels who have lost so many friends and relations to the eagles are striking back.
Not to mention the fish. I’ve acquired a respect for buzzards who only munch on the dead stuff.
The warning page seems to be gone now though.
I had the Malaware warning once when I tried to access the site. The second time it put me straight through…
I think the two older eaglets are spending most of their time out on the big branch. They’re getting used to sleeping on their feet I guess!
apparently this feed shuts down on the 30th, in 18 days, so they must be pretty well on the verge of moving on.
All 3 kids still present and accounted for. One was all alone for awhile, kept flapping its wings and squealing around the nest, guess it was lonely. One sibling finally joined it, and the third is out on a branch. Haven’t seen mom or dad in awhile though. The kids are looking awfully muscular now.
I am really going to miss this family when the feed goes down.
Anyone have any suggestions for a new 9000′ mascot?
Ah. Finally i see a parent on one branch, and a sprog on the other. Handsome fuckers. And something squealing and flapping wings in the extreme foreground.
Had an appointment at my hospital today; saw a notice. Seems a pair of Peregrine Falcons have nested on the roof, and their chicks are ready to fly. (Judging from the notice, they’re not very good at it: it says if you find one on the ground looking a bit down in the beak, not to pick it up, but phone hospital security . . .)
Now that sounds like a topic for a full post Red. When is you next appointment?
Expat:
Quite funny really; I had thought there was something unusual about that hospital. Realised later it was that I only saw one pigeon . . .
Dunno whether I’ll be there before they’ve flown altogether yet; they said I’d hear on Monday. Will just be going in for a day. But I’m off to France mid-July, so if they can’t do the epidural injection before then, it’ll be August. I’m annoyed with myself about not having got this appointment fixed earlier, ‘cos I’m getting a bit closer to having to go on wheels again than I’d like . . .And where I stay in France (well, France generally, actually) is not terribly wheelchair friendly.
(GP’s optimism misplaced, turns out: absolutely, definitely, no more neurosurgery or orthopaedic surgery ever, he said; I was expecting that, but still felt a bit miserable about it.).
Squirrel,
I’m sorry to hear about about your surgery ban.
Last year a pair of owls raised three chicks in Ken Gardens. I never had any trouble finding them because of the inevitable knot of twitchers they attracted. Just look for the thin, anxious, grey-haired guys with big binoculars all looking up. Every one of them with a story about how one of these chicks, or some other chick in some other year, came down on a trial flight and couldn’t get back up into the tree and how they stood guard to keep the evil dogs away until the proper official could be summoned to lift the chick in the proper manner back up onto a sufficiently high limb.
Just checked out our eaglets. All three still there, though perched just about as far away from each other as is possible and still be in the same tree. And one parent perched even further away, until he or she flew off.
And I know I’m slow, but I only just put two and two together: this nest is at a fish hatchery. And the ‘rents are always flying in with fish. maybe they are getting a little money back (for all those ads I don’t watch) in return for all the stock they must be losing.
Bluthner:
Yeah. well . . .Thanks. I’ll just have to carry on carrying on. . .I’ll get back to cheerful squirreldom again soon.
No twitchers with binoculars at Charing X hospital that I saw: possibly moved on by police on suspicion of peering in at the ward windows?
I looked at the video; wonder why two chicks seem to like perching (sleeping?) on the window sills. (Just looked again, actually: looks as though they have a nesting box on a balcony, with bones tidily shovelled into a corner. Some biggish bones, I thought: hopefully Kentucky Fried Chicken and not squirrel . . .This is a few weeks ago . . .what a bloody racket!)
Sq,
She’s a plucky little plucker. And plenty of those pesky parakeets around to pluck!
Parrakeets. Ugh. For some reason Brussels is plagued by flocks of them. Used to see them flying over from my friends’ flat, and they nest in — literally — hundreds around NATO HQ.
And now they’re here; saw some in Hyde Park in the trees last year, and we were very startled to see a dozen shooting across the garden square from my friend’s flat earlier this year. For a moment we were both sure we were back in Brussels.
I hope those young falcons take a liking to the taste. . .
The eaglets (eagleteenagers?) are going way out on the branches now. It looks like a pretty farm. I think it’s in Iowa. Does anyone know if it’s the farmers kid who put the camera in? This has been pretty neat but they sure look like they are reaching an age where they will take off.
Tommy,
on another site I found this message: