Environment

Wild Bald Eagles Mating!

by Keta | March 22, 2008 at 09:17 am

1253 views | 10 Recommendations | 4 comments

Eagle mating season on the west coast of North America is drawing to a close, in a few weeks eggs will be laid. Eagle watching reaches a mad frenzy some weeks after that (towards the middle of May) when the chicks hatch.

People the world over watch in awe as the adults take care of their tiny, fluffy bundles. The chicks grow incredibly fast; by the end of June they are almost full size! In mid July they start to fledge, awkward jumps and frantic wing-flapping signify the beginning of the end; before September the juveniles will be lead away from the nest. The adults can't let them stay around, after all, or they will compete for food with next season's chicks!

As a fitting start to the whole exciting experience, I managed to capture the wild bald eagles at Jericho Park in Vancouver mating yesterday afternoon! I will continue to visit this nest with my camera often, to bring you footage of the adults taking care of the eggs and then the chicks as they grow.

-Keta

1 See all footage | View Slideshow

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Jordan Yerman

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 10:37 on March 22nd, 2008

Nice work, Keta!

Keta

at 10:59 on March 22nd, 2008

Thanks Jordan!

cynthia yoo

at 12:37 on March 23rd, 2008

Thanks for this~~Wasn't there some eagle-cam monitoring a nest on the Island?

Keta

at 08:25 on March 24th, 2008

Yes, there are a couple . . . the outrageously popular Hornby Island nest (from the 2006 season); the eagles decided to nest in a different tree last year so there was no footage. But they are back this year!

LINK (wide angle, it doesn't look like the close-up cam is live yet)

http://www.hancockwildlifechannel.org/staticpages/index.php/20080302140549584

The Sidney nest (outside Victoria) was a good replacement for the Hornby nest last year, unfortunately the eagles there decided to build their nest way up higher in the tree this year so it is out of cam range!

How dare that pesky wildlife just go about its business with no consideration of our human voyeurism! haha