Eagle Cam Web Log 2007

Goodbye for Now

This morning we saw an adult feeding an eaglet, but we haven't seen much of that lately, as Justice and Majesty have been spending a lot of time away from the nest.

Since the eaglets are becoming so independent, we're going to wrap up the Eagle Cam Web Log for this season. Just a reminder that we'll likely turn off the Eagle Cam around the end of June. At that point we'll move the Osprey Cam to a 30-second update, and we'll be leaving that cam on throughout the summer and into the fall and winter.

Even though our ospreys are being lazy this summer with no chicks, we'll keep the Osprey Cam online to watch their activities. And we'll be looking for eagles to return to the osprey platform once the ospreys migrate south around late August or early September. In addition to the perching eagles, we might also see red-winged blackbirds, hawks, herons, and even a rare owl on the osprey nest. The Eagle Cam doesn't really see any action once the eagles leave. We might see a lone squirrel or a blue jay, but that's about it. So to save a little money on our end, we'll turn off the Eagle Cam until late November or early December, when we'll go live again for the 2007-2008 nesting season.

Birding as a Hobby:

In this last web log entry, I wanted to talk a little about birding as a hobby. I've received quite a few emails from folks who say that watching bird cams on the Internet has increased their interest in birding in general, so I wanted to offer some resources for those who are a bit new to this fun activity.

If you visit Wildbird.com, you'll find that they offer ten good tips for beginning birders. As tip #1 suggests, it's important to get a good field guide for your region of the country, so you know what kinds of birds you should be seeing; you can find popular field guides at your local bookstore or through online bookstores. Binoculars -- or a spotting scope -- are equally important. And while you don't need expensive binoculars to enjoy birding, it helps if you can get a good quality pair, since these will help you see more detail.

Some birders enjoy watching the bird life in their backyard, while some like to also venture out to parks and refuges to see more variety. Check with your local nature centers and see if they offer bird walks. For example, Blackwater Refuge offers free bird walks at different times during the spring, fall and winter (watch our calendar for dates). You can also check with your local Audubon Society chapter, Sierra Club chapter, or Wild Birds Unlimited store to see if they offer free bird walks. The advantage of birding with experienced birders is that they see and hear an amazing amount of birds that most regular birders miss. So it can be fun to go along with someone who really knows their stuff.

Once you get a feel for the species that are common in your area, you might want to start reading more about their habits and behaviors. Don and Lillian Stokes offer an excellent guide to local birds in their Stokes Bird Behavior series, which includes three volumes that can be purchased separately. The Stokes' guides tell you about various bird behaviors throughout the year -- such as when the bird does what -- and also describes common body language displays and vocal displays.

Other popular behavior guides are Kenn Kaufman's Lives of North American Birds and David Sibley's Guide to Bird Life and Behavior.

If you're brand new to birding, Sibley's Birding Basics is another good book to check out as it will help you learn to "see" like a birder. Also, Pete Dunne on Bird Watching is a good introduction to the world of birding.

Many birders often enjoy attracting birds to their backyard or balcony. There are numerous websites and books that will help you learn more about bird food, and even what plants birds prefer. You can put out nesting boxes and roosting boxes, suet, peanuts, meal worms, sunflower seeds, hummingbird feeders, and bird baths -- the birds will welcome them all. Gardening for birds is actually becoming so popular that Birds and Blooms is one magazine that focuses exclusively on attracting birds to your property using various landscaping techniques.

One tip about bird seed -- the seed sold at your local grocery store is likely not the best quality. It often contains cheap seed filler that the birds will not eat. It's better to go to a nature store and spend a little more on quality seed that will attract and satisfy your birds.

And another tip -- about cats. It's estimated that domestic cats kill hundreds of millions of birds and small mammals each year, so think about keeping your cat indoors -- especially if you feed birds.

If you're looking for magazines that will help you learn more about the art of birding, there are several options such as Wild Bird Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, and Birder's World Magazine. These publications offer news on conservation, travel, festivals, equipment, books, and identification. You can sometimes find these publications at your local bookstore. Audubon Magazine is a good publication, although their magazine covers a wider range of issues than just birds and birding. You can also get Birding Magazine by becoming a member of the American Birding Association. And finally, you can get "Living Bird" magazine and "Birdscope" by joining the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Many people who bird regularly start a "life list" in order to keep track of all the species they've seen. Whenever they spot a new species, they say they found "a lifer." You can keep a simple list (like checking them off in your field guide), although some people purchase a birders' journal for recording details about their sightings, and you can even purchase birding software that helps you keep a database of the species you've seen and details on where and when you saw them. Also some birders like to participate in citizen science projects like the Great Backyard Bird Count and Project FeederWatch, where you can use your own local bird observations to further avian science.

Photographing birds has been popular for a long time, but one new device is the Birdhouse Spy Cam, which we have in our website store. It's a fun way to have your own bird cam in your backyard. They have two types of cams -- one for your feeder and one for a nest box. You can watch the bird action on your TV and record it with your VCR.

If you have questions about food, equipment or birding in general, and you'd like to talk to someone in the flesh, see if you have a local birding business in your neighborhood, such as a Wild Birds Unlimited store. The people who run such stores know the birds in your area and know how to attract them, since it's their business. They also sell books, magazines, optics, as well as food, feeders and houses. My local store also sends out a free newsletter that alerts me as to what kind of bird activity might be happening that month.

As you can see, birding in America is big business. Some 51 million Americans consider themselves birders and they contribute approximately $32 billion to the economy each year through their birding activities. This economic power is important because it builds pressure to protect birds and their dwindling habitat.

Speaking of money, another way you can get a lot of bang for your birding buck is to buy Duck Stamps. Although Duck Stamps were originally meant only for bird hunters, now many birders also buy them -- which is a good thing, since the number of hunters in America is declining. Anyone can buy a Duck Stamp, and 98 cents out of every dollar collected through Duck Stamps goes toward purchasing wetland habitat for inclusion in the National Wildlife Refuge System. In fact, much of Blackwater Refuge was purchased with these funds.

A competition is held each year for the annual Duck Stamp ($15) and Junior Duck Stamp ($5) design, so you can get a new one each year and collect them. The newest stamp will go on sale June 22. You can learn more about purchasing the stamps on our Duck Stamps page. And note that funds from the Junior Duck Stamp go towards conservation awards and scholarships for young people.

Finally, I can't talk about birding without acknowledging the realities of West Nile virus and bird flu, as some people worry that these are good reasons to avoid feeding or even being around birds. Here is a good article from the respected Cornell Lab of Ornithology that addresses the often over-hyped fear we sometimes have regarding the dangers of West Nile virus and bird flu. Also here are two good Audubon articles about how you can keep your feeding areas clean and healthy -- for both you and the birds: Safe Bird Feeding and Winter Banquet.

Below are some additional links that you might find useful as you explore the wonderful world of birding:

Audubon Birding Basics
All About Birds
What Bird - Bird Identifier
Macaulay Library of Animal Sounds (includes birds)

I want to thank everyone who has joined us for our 2006-2007 Eagle Cam season, as we watched Justice and Majesty grow into strong, independent raptors. Thank you for your time, your enthusiasm, your questions, and your photos.

I sincerely hope that our Blackwater raptor cams have given you a new appreciation for our feathered friends, who rely on us not only for protection of their homes but also their planet.

Until next season,
Lisa - webmaster
(contact)

No Longer Endangered?

First, a note about the status of the Osprey Cam. We apologize for the down time. Our ranger tried to fix the cam while our cam technician was out of town, but he was not successful. Our cam technician returned on Saturday from his trip, but heavy rain from Tropical Storm Barry prevented him from going out right away to check the cam. He plans to do it on Monday. We think it might be the battery but it could also be the controller on our solar panel. If it's the controller, we might have to order a part, but we'll see what our cam tech finds. Thanks for your patience.

As I mentioned on the Eagle Cam page, we just updated the Eagle Gallery, and as of Thursday, we could see that all four family members were at the nest. This means that both our parents are still looking after the eaglets, and the eaglets seem to be healthy and safe, even though both are likely flying by now. Thanks to all those who have been sending in photos to our Eagle Gallery even though the chicks are not at the nest as much during the day and night.

On the Norfolk Botanical Gardens Eagle Cam, the three eaglets there are a little younger than our birds, so they are just beginning to seriously branch and fly. When you visit the website, be sure to look at the slideshows they have posted as they contain a lot of interesting photos. Here are two good branching shots (photo 1 and photo 2) from the slideshows that illustrate how the eaglets are slowly moving further and further out onto the branches -- sometimes with their parents -- and how they hop around the branches using their talons and wings. Taking that first leap is a big moment in the life of an eaglet, so it takes some time for them to work up to it.

Eagle No Longer Endangered?
Normally we don't talk about politics too much in the web logs, but sometimes a political issue comes up that directly affects our birds, and I wanted to mention one of those issues in this log entry.

The American bald eagle is very close to coming off the federal endangered/threatened species list -- in fact, it will likely come off sometime in the next few weeks. This is an event that many conservationists and environmentalists have been anticipating for many years, so it's worth looking at the implications of such a momentous move by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

In 1940, Congress passed the Bald Eagle Protection Act because bald eagle numbers in America had plummeted and the eagle was faced with possible extinction. In 1962, an amendment was added to this law that protected the golden eagle as well, so it became the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. In 1967, bald eagles -- in most areas south of the 40th parallel -- were officially protected as an endangered species under a law that preceded the Endangered Species Act of 1973. When the ESA was created by Congress in 1973, the eagle came under its protection, and has been listed ever since.

The main reason for the severe decline in eagle populations is best described by the USFWS: "The greatest threat to the bald eagle’s existence arose from the widespread use of DDT and other pesticides after World War II. DDT was used for insect control throughout the country and its residues washed into lakes and streams. There, it was absorbed by aquatic plants and animals that were eaten by fish. The contaminated fish, in turn, were consumed by bald eagles. The chemical interfered with the bald eagle’s ability to develop strong shells for its eggs. As a result, bald eagles and many other bird species began laying eggs with shells so thin they often broke during incubation or otherwise failed to hatch. Their reproduction disrupted, bald eagle populations plummeted."

Other threats to the eagle included lead poisoning from lead shot used by hunters, as well as declining habitat.

The bald eagle got a lot of help in its recovery when DDT was banned in the U.S. in 1972, and when the USFWS worked to phase out the use of lead shot. In addition, the USFWS employees at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, Maryland assembled the largest colony of breeding bald eagles in captivity and hatched out 124 chicks that were used to restock some of the wild population. Finally the Endangered Species Act also played a role in rehabilitating eagle populations because it legally required a recovery plan to rehabilitate the eagle and it made it unlawful for anyone to "take" a bald eagle, and this included significantly modifying its habitat. The Act also outlined procedures for federal agencies to follow when taking actions that might hurt eagle populations.

All these efforts -- in conjunction with state activities to rehabilitate eagle populations -- helped get the bald eagle to the point where in 1995, the USFWS upgraded the eagle from endangered to threatened. In 1999, bald eagle populations had grown so large that the USFWS then announced that they wanted to examine the issue of removing the eagle from protection under the Endangered Species Act altogether. There was a considerable delay between that time and now, but the USFWS was hesitant to remove the eagle until it was sure it could be adequately protected without the ESA. Now that time has come. At this stage eagle populations have grown from 417 breeding pairs nationwide in 1963 to approximately 9,789 pairs today.

On Friday, June 1, 2007, the USFWS released a 34-page decision on how they plan to protect the eagle after it comes off the ESA list. The chief controversy has been how the USFWS would define the deceptively simple word "disturb." Because the eagle will no longer be protected by the ESA, that means the main form of legal protection will fall to the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. But the question remained, how strictly would the government define the ability to "disturb" a bald eagle. If the USFWS defined the word too loosely, eagles could be driven away from feeding areas or winter roosts by construction noise and other human activities, and the only way to prove the disturbance would have required that a person produce a dead or injured eagle.

So the USFWS announced on June 1, that they will enforce a tougher definition of "disturb" that defines disturbance as "to agitate or bother a bald or golden eagle to a degree that causes, or is likely to cause, based on the best scientific information available, 1) injury to an eagle, 2) a decrease in its productivity, by substantially interfering with normal breeding, feeding, or sheltering behavior, or 3) nest abandonment, by substantially interfering with normal breeding, feeding, or sheltering behavior."

This much tougher definition offers greater protection and greater chance for enforcement of the law. It also means it will be easier for Americans to maintain a strong bald eagle population that will not slip back into endangered status once the eagle is removed from the ESA list.

As good as this news was, challenges remain for those who are interested in protecting the eagle. For example, states with a growing eagle population, but also growing human development along the coastlines, will have to work hard to ensure that eagles have enough quality habitat near their food source in order to raise a family. States can still use local laws to protect eagles, and they will have to decide how they want to approach protection once the raptor comes off the ESA list. Also, there is currently a controversy in Arizona where environmentalists have asked the USFWS to declare the Arizona bald eagle as a separate population under the Endangered Species Act because it is an isolated group that does something no other bald eagles do -- nest in the arid desert. That battle continues to this day.

But the good news is that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has taken an important step in protecting the eagles that will be delisted. This was a controversial decision, since there are many landowners who hope to significantly increase development near eagle nests once eagles lose some of their protection. We hope that in the future, the USFWS will continue to place science above politics when it comes to protecting our eagles.

At the sites below, you can learn more about the history of protecting eagles, as well as more about the USFWS announcement:

USFWS Bald Eagle Fact Sheet (PDF file)

USFWS Announcement on new eagle management guidelines

"Disturb" is Given Broader Definition from the Washington Post

Press Release from Environmental Defense regarding USFWS announcement on definition of "disturb"

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
(contact)