Feeding Time at Pale Male's on Fifth Avenue Through the Stellascope! Plus The Teneyke Bald Eagles Nest

Longtime hawk watcher Stella Hamilton has broken the Stellascope out for the year.  She can often be found at The Hawk Bench in Central Park these days, treating hawk fans and passers-by with a close up look through the Stellascope of the Fifth Avenue nest  and this year she is experimenting with taking digiscoped photographs through it as well. 

Photograph by Stella Hamilton

Octavia stands on the nest and if you look carefully there just might be a little white head and shoulders sprouting out of the nest near her feet.

Photograph by Stella Hamilton
 According to Stella, Octavia is now on a break and Pale Male feeds the eyass in front of him a snack.

And TA DA!  Video of Teneyke Eagle Mom feeding an eaglet on the Teneyke Bald Eagle Nest just outside of  Brodhead WI,  while Dad looks on.  Though Dad appears to have kept a portion of the dinner for himself as he occasionally takes a bite of something down by his feet, while Mom feeds the eaglet.

The number of eaglets on the nest is still up in the air.  Earlier in the season Mom could have been feeding two, or feeding one that wiggled around as the youngster or youngsters were too small to actually be seen at that point. 

 Time will tell.

Just as I finished with my observation of the Teneyke nest, Mom flew off and I packed up to leave.   I then headed out for the drive to the nearest Red-tailed Hawk nest, turned a corner and who should be standing not far away in a field?  

 Bald Eagle Mom, Haliacetus leucocephalus...giving me a binoc look from the near-by field.  WOW!

Then she turned her head and gave me the look commonly used by a mature Bald Eagle.  A rather piercing... What Do You Want, expression?

But she makes no move whatsoever to fly away.  Either she figures she can take me or I don't look very threatening.

You know what?  This is one really big bird.  Three and a half feet tall, with a wing span pushing eight feet and a massive very strong I-mean-business beak, to say nothing of her talons.  

And from the look of things, she is not about to go anywhere.  I can't see any prey on the ground but as she is holding her ground and staring me down I semi assume she may have her dinner under her waiting for me to get lost so she can eat it.

Then it occurs to me that though this is the first very close look I've had of her, as her nest is a half mile away from the road I must observe her from, and as she does have eagle eyes and I've been watching this particular nest for some years, I am likely extremely familiar to her.  

We stare at each other for a few more minutes and then I drive away to leave her to have dinner in peace.   She'll be back on the nest tending her progeny in no time.

Happy Eagling!
Donegal Browne