Eagle-Cam Update
April 6
Hi, it's Steve Chase and we're here today to talk about the NCTC Eagle-Cam. We're sitting here looking at the Eagle-Cam closed-circuit image here at the National Conservation Training Center. Back at the beginning of the year, our pair of nesting bald eagles had three eggs, and about three weeks ago one of those eggs hatched out, and now we have one eaglet in the nest.
We're pretty much figuring because of the time involved that the other two eggs are not going to be viable this year. This pair has produced varying numbers of eaglets each year. The first year they produced two where one survived. The second year they produced three, and all three fledged out. The next year they laid three eggs and all three eggs were not viable due to cold and wet weather. And last year they laid another three eggs and all three of those eggs hatched out and we fledged three more eagles. So this year it's looking like we're going to have one eagle to hopefully fledge.
The eaglet right now is about three weeks old and it's growing like a weed. The amount of food that the adults bring in is pretty impressive to see. We're about three, 400 yards up from the Potomac River, which is full of fish, and these adult eagles are bringing fish in, sometimes three or four a day, and because of that diet, this young eagle is really growing fast.
Eagles eat a lot of different things, and we've seen most of that -- of their food up in the nest. Besides all those fish that they're bringing in, they're also very opportunistic, and we've seen them bring up small birds, small mammals, like squirrels, and even the occasional road kill. It looked like they brought up what looked like the remains of a red fox about a week ago. These things don't last long up there because the two adults are eating heartily as is the eaglet.
Really excited at NCTC to be working with a partner that's going to be providing us with a new website for our wide video feed. This is going to allow a lot of people to be able to experience live video and audio of the nest, and we are just about ready to get that program rolling, and when we do, we'll put the details up on the NCTC Eagle-Cam website.
You can also check the Eagle-Cam daily BLOG which has not only descriptions and news from the NCTC eagle nest but from the many other bird cams around the country, including a number of bald eagle-cams.
Some of the other nests in the region have been very productive this year and you can take a look and see how those young eaglets are doing in their nests as well.
So, that's it from NCTC, and we'll check back with you in a couple weeks.
