Thousands tuned in as two baby bald eagles hatched live on webcam in Decoarh, Iowa, over the weekend. But if you missed it, you can still see a third eaglet hatch, probably within the next 48 hours.
The first eaglet emerged shortly after 6 a.m. local time on Apr. 2, and the second hatched just after 5 a.m. on Apr. 3. The streaming video attracted more than 100,000 viewers over the weekend, so many that the site crashed for about two hours on Saturday morning.
Because the third egg was laid four days after the second, it is expected to hatch sometime in the next few days, said Bob Anderson, executive director of the nonprofit Raptor Resource Project.
The proud parents have been busy keeping the chicks and their unborn sibling warm, and ripping the flesh off muskrats and other prey to feed to the nestlings.
“I call it the table of gore,” Anderson said. “There’s plenty of protein up in that nest.”
Eagles can’t control their own body temperature until they are 10 to 14 days old, so the parents will stick close to the babies for the next few weeks. On warm days, you may see the eaglets exploring the nest, but on cold or rainy days they will probably take shelter under their parents.
The eaglets will grow quickly; some researchers claim that bald eagles gain more weight per day than any other bird in north America.
When they hatched, the eaglets were covered with a uniform, light-colored down. At about 9 to 11 days old, the down will be replaced by a darker, medium-gray second down. Their juvenile feathers will appear when the eaglets are about 24 days old, but their adult plumage — the famous dark body and white head — won’t develop until they’re about three years old.
Because male and female eagles have the same coloration, we won’t be able to tell the eaglets’ sexes until they’re almost fully grown. Female eagles are generally a little larger than males, but there are few other ways to tell them apart. Even with the parents, it can be difficult to tell the mother from the father unless they’re sitting side by side.
The eagles will be ready to fly around age 11 to 12 weeks, when their feathers and wing muscles are sufficiently developed.
“Every baby that’s hatched at this nest have fledged,” Anderson said. “People have this tendency to worry, but it works out.”
The eagle family is filmed from two cameras positioned near their nest 80 feet up a tree near the Decorah Fish Hatchery. Anderson remotely points, zooms and pans one camera from a nearby shed.
The other camera runs automatically 24/7 and switches to infrared at night, picking up the eagles’ body heat and converting it to a black-and-white image. The view can look like there’s a spotlight shining on the nest, but the eagles are completely in the dark.
“We would never put a spotlight on an eagle nest,” Anderson said, and added that he’s been getting angry phone calls in the middle of the night demanding that he turn off the lights.
“It’s kind of an insult to my research and my conservation work. People don’t understand,” he said. “I wish they would trust me for my life’s work with conservation, and do a little bit of research. We have many infrared cameras out there in wildlife, and we would never put a spotlight on an eagle.”
Still, he said, “for every crank I get we have 2,000 thank yous. I’m really happy we have such great video and audio going out to the internet.”
