Eagle Cam Web Log

Until December

We are going to officially bring our 2004-2005 Eagle Cam Web Log to a close now that Aramis is spending so little time at the nest. As we enter July, the chicks will be seen less and less as they become more independent, so it seems like a good time to end the Web Log for this season. We'll continue to operate the cam for a while longer and post comments on the cam page, and we'll continue the Gallery as well, but this message will bring a close to my eagle posts for this season.

First, I want to thank all those who participated in our amazing eagle adventure this year. It was our first online Eagle Cam, and we think it was a tremendous success, as we were privileged to watch three eaglets being born and then growing up to fledge. The added bonus of seeing Porthos go to Vermont to become a "pioneer" was just icing on the cake.

We especially appreciate all the watchers who stuck with us when the cam was accidentally moved right after the final chick was born. We've learned a lot from this season, and we hope to make some equipment changes next time that will make things go a bit more smoothly. But overall, we are very pleased with the success of the cam and with the astounding amount of cam watchers from around the world who tuned in to watch. During the height of the cam's popularity, we had watchers from Russia, Germany, Austria, Finland, Denmark, Holland, Italy, England, Wales, Canada (Newfoundland, Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia), and many states across the U.S. And these were just some of the viewers we knew about!

At this point, the Friends of Blackwater have every intention to bring the Eagle Cam back in December 2005 for the next bald eagle breeding season here at Blackwater Refuge.

As a final "thank you" to our Eagle Cam watchers, we are offering two beautiful sunset photos taken by photographer Alan Becker. Much thanks to Alan for allowing us to post these. Both photos were taken from the Refuge Wildlife Drive and show the Blackwater River, which is where the young eagles and their parents are now hunting for food (as are the osprey parents). The photos really do justice to the beauty that is Blackwater Refuge. We hope you enjoy, and thank you again for making our first Eagle Cam season a whole lot of fun.

For PC: Click on the link for your resolution. When the image finishes loading, right-click on it and choose "Set As Wallpaper" or "Set As Background" from the pop-up menu.

For Mac: Click on the link for your resolution. When the image finishes loading, click and hold on the image. Choose "Save This Image As" or "Download Image to Disk" and save the image to your hard drive. Go to the "Control Panels" and choose "Appearance" or "Desktop Patterns," and select the image as your desktop image.

Until next season,
Lisa - webmaster

General Eagle News

First a personal note: Since I have learned that not everyone follows both cams, I'll repeat my message in both web logs. I'll be going on vacation to the Outer Banks of North Carolina from June 18-25. During that time, we will not have any Gallery updates or new Web Log posts, but please feel free to continue sending Gallery submissions and questions, as I'll be checking in occasionally. We'll get caught up completely when I return.

Also, our cam technician will be keeping a close eye on the equipment, but with one less person on duty, we might not be as speedy to notice a problem, so we ask for your patience if any technical glitches occur.

At the Eagle Cam nest, we've been seeing Aramis with the occasional adult and sometimes on his own, but for most of the day he is gone. I asked our ranger if anyone knows if Aramis has fledged, based on the view from their TV monitor and field observations. He said they can't be sure, but he saw the nest through the trees not long ago and could not see an eagle in it or around it. Nothing conclusive, but it adds to our belief that Aramis might be flying.

Also, we wanted to pass along a couple links to other cams where eaglets will be fledging or are in the process of fledging. We didn't get to see much of our own eaglets learning to fly, but these two cams might provide some better views of eaglets leaving the nest.

Eagle Cam - Washington State Dept. of Fish and Wildlife
Eagle Cam - Fort St. Vrain (Xcel Energy)

Finally, we wanted to pass along some news from Vermont. As some may have noticed by checking out the Vermont Initiative website, they have new eaglets in the hacking tower. According to Lil Lumbra, their media person, they've added another three eaglets. Two eaglets are from a rehabilitator named Tom Riccardi (from Massachusetts) and one is an orphan eaglet found in Maryland. They brought the orphaned eaglet to Tom's place a few weeks ago, but it was too young to go in with the first group of birds.

Also, they will be getting two more eaglets from a rehabilitator in New York in about a week. They have set up the boxes so that the center one is still accessible to the first group of fledged eaglets in case they need to come back and feed.

Keep an eye on the birds for me!

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster

Eagle Talons

Aramis celebrated his 14-week birthday on Monday, and it would seem likely that he has fledged by now. We still see one of the parents occasionally sharing food with him, but on Monday we did see what appeared to be Aramis with a small fish. Hard to tell if he caught this himself, but he is gone from the nest a lot these days.

Something else we saw on the Eagle Cam yesterday was what appeared to be the youngest staring up at the camera. We've put this photo side-by-side with our wallpaper photograph to show how much the littlest eaglet has changed.

In other news, Steve Costello, the photographer with the Vermont Bald Eagle Restoration Initiative, recently sent another photo from the day the eaglets were first put into the hacking tower, and the photo offers a good look at the eaglet's powerful feet, including one of the eaglet's talons, which has been banded with a visual ID band.

The claws on a bird of prey are called talons, and on the eagle they're comprised of four powerful toes that can break through tough fish skin or animal skin and then hold tight while carrying the prey home.

The eagle's talons are similar to the osprey's in that they both have tiny spicules on the toes (spicules are little bumps that help the raptors hold onto slippery fish). But the osprey has one advantage that the eagle does not have -- an opposable toe. One of the osprey's front toes can rotate backwards so that two toes are holding the fish from the back and two from the front. An eagle can only hold the fish with one back toe (called the hallux). This means an osprey has an easier time holding onto a thrashing fish.

Something else worth noting about the bald eagle's feet is that the feathers do not go all the way down the leg (called the tarsus), unlike a golden eagle, which has a fully feathered leg. The reason for the difference is that the bald eagle's primary diet is fish, where as the golden eagle's diet is primarily birds and small mammals. The bald eagle's lower body often gets wet during fishing, so in order for its legs to dry faster and to reduce drag in the water, the legs, or tarsi, are bare of feathers.

Also, check out this graphic to learn more about the legs and talons of a bald eagle.

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster

Photo of Eaglets

Good news from Vermont! Amy, the Hack Site Coordinator, reports that all six eaglets in Vermont have fledged. Some of them took a little longer than the others, but all have made a first flight and have returned to the tower at least once. Congrats to all the Maryland eaglets and especially "our" eaglet!

Also, we're very pleased to post a new wallpaper showing our three musketeers from the Eagle Cam nest. The photo below was taken by Craig Koppie when he first went up to our nest to fix the camera and check on the eaglets back in early April. He was kind enough to forward this to us today, and we thought it made a nice memento of our little crew, especially now that they're starting to go their separate ways. Follow the instructions below to put it on your desktop. [Edited to Add: In case you're not sure, in the back left is Porthos (the VT eaglet), in the back right is Athos, and in front is the youngest, Aramis]

As for news from the Eagle Cam nest, we've seen a couple shots of Aramis getting a meal over the last couple days, so he's still checking in with the parents. But we've only seen a little of Athos over the last couple weeks, so he's probably close to being independent.

For PC: Click on the link for your resolution. When the image finishes loading, right-click on it and choose "Set As Wallpaper" or "Set As Background" from the pop-up menu.

For Mac: Click on the link for your resolution. When the image finishes loading, click and hold on the image. Choose "Save This Image As" or "Download Image to Disk" and save the image to your hard drive. Go to the "Control Panels" and choose "Appearance" or "Desktop Patterns," and select the image as your desktop image.

Susquehanna River Eagles

From the Eagle Cam nest: The youngest eaglet, Aramis, is spending very little time in the nest. He stopped sleeping in the nest several days ago, and over the weekend, he's been seen at the nest getting a meal from one of the parents, but for most of the day he is not visible. We're not positive, but there might be a chance that he has fledged. We'll try to get more info about that if we can.

Now onto Susquehanna River eagles...

Several of our cam watchers have told us that they watch a popular eagle nest that can be seen near the Susquehanna River. One of those watchers kindly sent us the beautiful photo that appears below showing a time-lapse photo of the adult eagle coming into the nest. Click on the thumbnail.

Since we're celebrating the fledging of the eaglets in Vermont, it seemed like a good time to share the photo and also the two below that show the parent in the same nest with what appears to be two eaglets. Click on the thumbnails for larger versions. And a big thanks to Woody for the use of his photos.

The Susquehanna River is a well-known river in these parts because it is vital to the existence of the Chesapeake Bay. About 12,000 years ago, melting glaciers flooded the Susquehanna River Valley, thus creating the Bay. Today the Susquehanna River provides 50% of the freshwater entering the Chesapeake Bay, which is itself the largest estuary in America.

The National Geographic website offers a wonderful interactive zoom map of the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed. Visit their website and then zoom in to the area above Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and you can see the Susquehanna River and how it flows into the Bay. The map might take a few minutes to fully load.

The site also discusses some of the many troubles that the Chesapeake Bay is experiencing due to pollution and development throughout the watershed -- an area which covers six states: Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia as well as the District of Columbia. The effort to save the Chesapeake Bay is an ongoing one, and groups like the Friends of Blackwater work to not only protect Blackwater Refuge, but to also protect islands in the Chesapeake Bay as well as the quality of the Bay itself.

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster

Word from Vermont

First, a technical note: Some cam watchers have noticed that our website is not updating the cams every minute. We have a firewall issue that we're working on, and we hope to have it fixed soon. Meanwhile, the cams at WildCam.com are updating regularly.

As we mentioned earlier, the bars came down at the Vermont hacking tower early this morning, and the eaglets from Maryland were allowed to fledge. Some of our helpful cam watchers caught the action for us; much thanks for their dedication. You can see several shots here showing the bars and a person visible in front of the box.

Amy, the Hack Site Coordinator, sent an email this morning to let us in on what it was like watching the eaglets fledge:

"What an exciting morning! The bars came down at 3am and all went smoothly. The first bird from box 2 flew at 5:30am! What a great sight. It flew to the pine trees to the left of the tower. The second bird (we don't know from which box) flew at 6:10am, and the third at 6:37am.

There was a lot of mingling among the birds on the deck before they flew, so we were unable to determine which was which. Our scopes just weren't powerful enough to read the bands from where we were located. As of now, 3 birds remain at the tower, flapping and eating intermittently. The 3 flyers are hanging out in the pine trees behind the tower.

Their first flights were far from graceful, but they each landed well and have been hopping around from branch to branch. One of the flyers did have a bit of sustained flight with some tough maneuvering among the trees! It was spectacular.

These birds are great and doing well. We have food placed on several platforms in the vicinity of the tower should they wish to eat or are able to find those sources. If not, we anticipate they will return to the tower at night to eat and sleep."

Thanks to Amy for sharing such a rewarding experience. We're very happy that the birds seem to be adjusting to their new freedom. Now that they have fledged in Vermont, Vermont is their home and where they will return when they are ready to breed. Best of luck to all of them.

As you may have noticed on the Vermont Bald Eagle Restoration Initiative website, it states that they will be getting a new batch of bald eaglets around mid-June. From what we understand, they will be from Massachusetts and Maine.

We took a short video this morning of one of the eaglets in our box flapping his wings outside on the perch. This is a 2.2MB MPEG movie. Right-click on the link below and choose "Save Target As" to download the short clip to your hard drive so you can view it.

Back at our cam nest: Last night it appeared that the youngest eaglet did not spend most or all of the night in the nest -- this was the first time he seemed to be roosting in the trees with the rest of the family. Later this morning he was back at the nest being fed by one of the parents. We're not sure if he has fledged, but he seems to be getting closer, and he will be our last for this season. We'll continue to watch the Eagle Cam until we are sure all have fledged.

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster