February 25, 2006
Second Eaglet
Congrats to the parents once again! Our second eaglet took a little extra time coming into the world, but we're glad it finally got here.
Throughout the day on Friday, we saw a small hole in the second egg, but after many hours, the chick didn't seem to be making much progress. Finally late on Friday afternoon (around 5:30pm) the chick broke through the egg; this was a 36-day incubation and puts it about 2 1/2 days behind the oldest.
For those keeping score:
1st chick:
Egg laid - Jan. 17
Hatched - Feb. 22
36-day incubation
2nd chick:
Egg laid - Jan. 19
Hatched - Feb. 24
36-day incubation
Because bald eaglets are the fastest growing birds in North America, chicks that are only a few days apart can look very different. In fact not that long ago, ornithologists (or bird biologists) thought bald eaglets were hatching weeks apart because there was such a difference in their sizes. It turns out the chicks were only a couple days apart, but they were growing very rapidly.
In raptor families, the firstborn will always be the dominant chick -- it will get fed first and get fed the most. Even in a two-chick nest, you can see competition between the chicks, especially if the food supply is tight.
Last year we had three eaglets, with the third chick born five days after the first, and we honestly didn't know how the small third eaglet would fare in a nest with two bigger siblings, that together would demand most of the food. But the parents did a great job of making sure that each of the eaglets got fed, and we were pleasantly surprised to see all three chicks fledge successfully in the spring.
In this year's Eagle Cam nest we've seen some great shots of the mother eagle feeding the young. In fact we've seen her working her way around to both sides of the nest or reaching over the head of one chick in order to give each eaglet some food. What's amazing is that although the mother is a powerful raptor -- bigger than even the male -- she has a very gentle touch when placing food into the eaglet's mouth. Here you can see two close-up shots from our 2005 cam showing how the mother hands off tiny bits of food. Some cam watchers have asked if eagles regurgitate the food, and the answer is no. The adults tear off the food and give it to the eaglets with their beaks.
The parents will continue feeding the chicks for a while because tearing meat from fish and ducks is hard work that requires a strong beak and neck, and the eaglets have a lot of growing to do before they can manage that on their own.
Special Treat:
Finally as a special treat, one of our cam watchers from Amsterdam, Netherlands, has put together a special "Day in the Life" movie showing images taken from our Eagle Cam during a 24-hour period. The movie is run at high-speed so you can see the entire day and night in about a minute, and you get a great look at how the mother moves in the nest. Download the movie by right-clicking on the link below and choosing "Save Target As." The AVI movie is 4.7 MB in size. Much thanks to Evert for sharing his creation!
[Note: If you have trouble viewing the AVI file, you can download this WMV file instead.]
In the next few web logs we'll talk more about food delivery, chick competition, and the possible gender of the chicks. And for those who are new to our cams, later in the season we will hold our annual chick-naming contest.
A Technical Note for AOL Users:
One of our cam watchers who uses AOL mentioned that when she visited the Gallery, she could not see the new pages I had added. AOL stores web pages on proxy servers to make websites load faster. A drawback to this practice is that sometimes you are not loading the newest page when you visit a website. If you think a web page is old, hold down the CTRL key and then click the Reload button in the AOL browser and this will force the AOL server to get the freshest page. This technique appears to work for AOL users who have tried it.
Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
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