Birds and Nature

6pm-dad just brought in fresh food-a large fish-dropped it in the nest and flew. Now mom is feeding babies and herself fish.  6:15-dinner over and mom tries to cover chicks with her body.  However the oldest is often able to wiggle out and sometimes the others do too.  SeEtta

I swear that the oldest nestling Bald Eagle grew 6 inches overnight.  It looks really large today and is now moving around the nest away from mom.  SeEtta

As much fun as the nesting Bald Eagles are, there are lots of other birds either migrating in/through my area of Colorado or engaging in breeding. So I will start interjecting some of them in between Bald Eagle updates. I spotted this Northern Flicker (red-shafted) in the top of this dead stump while birding on the Canon City, CO Riverwalk this week. I have seen Great Horned Owls nesting in the top of dead stumps before but not flickers. The flicker has it's nictitating membrane covering it's eyes in the bottom pic (link discusses how high speed photography shows that woodpeckers cover their eyes with the nictitating membrane split second before hitting tree with their beak--a great protection). SeEtta

Up late and checked in to see mom still on nest then heard what I expected was calling from the male who must have landed on a tree limb nearby (but didn't see him in nest). She became quite alert and soon repeated the vocalization and raised her head straight up and back, like cranes do. Very interesting. Chicks awake and peeping. SeEtta

Female is doing better at judging food size for chicks. Earlier she kept trying to give way too big piece to youngest who could not even grasp it. Really fun to watch her feed them. Given their young age she will likely be feeding every few hours (maybe less) so tune in. SeEtta

The third egg in Eagle nest hatched yesterday--now some views of all three fuzzy hatchlings off and on. They are too cool. SeEtta

This is a very long--over 10 min-video capture from the streaming video. At the beginning both parents loaf in the nest. After the male flies off, there is an extended period of time with the female just lying in the nest. If you don't want to watch a number of minutes of this, if you let the video run then come back in time for it to hit the 7 minute mark you will view the second hatchling. At one point the female carefully touches the hatchling with her large and potentially harmful beak--very touching how gentle she is. SeEtta