Blackwater Eagles Have a Hatch! And an Influx of Wild Boars.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BLACKWATER EAGLE CAM
From the Blackwater Eagle Cam Log:

"1st egg laid: January 23
Hatched: March 2 (early AM)
Days of incubation: 38 days

2nd egg laid: January 26
Hatched: March 3 (early AM)
Days of incubation: 36 days

As those who have followed our Eagle Cam in the past know, we always like to see the eaglets hatch close together, because it helps to keep them closer in size and might lessen some of the competition between them. We’ll still see sibling rivalry in the nest (the older eaglet pecking the younger one on the head), but fortunately this year the eaglets hatched very close to one another, so one eaglet won’t have 2-3 days of growth advantage over its sibling.

We continue to be amazed at the performance of our parents. Both parents have been bringing in food (fish and a bird), which is a marked improvement from last year, when our father seemed to not be aware that his job involved providing regular meals.

In addition, the parents have also done a great job of sharing the incubation duties, especially through the storm. They rarely left the eggs/chick uncovered for long, and both parents gave each other a break from incubation duties so the other could leave the nest and feed.

Speaking of the storm, on the morning of March 1 — just before the older eaglet began the hatching process and before the storm arrived — we saw a touching scene on the nest. Normally our male eagle roosts elsewhere (probably in a nearby tree or in the nest tree) during the evening hours and we never see the parents sleeping together on the nest. But on the morning of March 1, the two parents slept together for a short time. It was hard to tell who was the extra parent, but it was probably the male. We’re not sure why they slept together on this particular morning, but maybe the older eaglet had just started chirping from inside its shell, and the other parent decided to stay close."

Wild Boar, Courtesy of http://www.lilburnes.org/

We have Red-tails and Turkeys adapting to urban areas in the U.S., but Germany has Wild Boar ... a news item from South African Filmmaker Adam Welz

Foxes and hares create havoc in urban Germany

March 03 2009 at 10:41AM

Berlin - Hares, foxes and wild boar are increasingly migrating into Germany's cities, causing havoc and even sometimes endangering humans, a major wildlife organisation said on Monday
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=nw20090303052439491C977830

COMING UP NEXT--THE TULSA NEST!

Donegal Browne