March 24, 2005
Housekeeping
The eagles have occupied the nest for a few months now, and some cam watchers have asked about housekeeping at the nest now that the family has grown in size.
As most cam watchers have probably noticed, the tree trunk near the nest is often whitewashed with excrement. This is because, like ospreys, bald eagles eject their feces out of the nest, and sometimes it will hit the trunk, which is the largest object near them.
The eaglets will learn to eject their excrement as well. We have a photo from last year showing our osprey chicks learning to do it -- this is the basic posture. Shooting it out of the nest keeps the nest tidier, but sometimes the birds need to look where they're shooting -- check out this humorous photo showing an osprey who owes someone an apology.
As for the nest itself, it can get rather ripe with leftover fish and duck bits, as well as insects -- an unavoidable reality with so much dead food remaining in the nest. Our cam technician reports that recently he was watching the Eagle Cam on the TV video monitor at the Refuge and he saw that spiders were everywhere on the branches and nest. On the website cam images, the spiders are just tiny black spots, but on the moving video you can see the insects better.
Our cam technician also said that the video shows how the eaglets dig at bits of food that are scattered throughout the nest floor, and this is what often brings them closer to the trunk. Parents will often add new vegetation to the nest to freshen it up and to bury food remains.
In general, eagles are known to be very loyal to their nest sites, laying down a new foundation on top of the old nest year after year until the nest grows very large. But eagle scientists have noticed that some eagle pairs maintain multiple nesting sites, and that has led these scientists to speculate that the eagles might use a back-up nest in order to let the first one "air out."
[Side note: The monitor at the Refuge has the same view that we have of the eagles, but it's a video feed since the camera is on-site. The video allows them to see small details that we might miss with the still images.]
Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster