2010~~Live Eagle Cam from Norfolk Botanical Gardens
 

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Eagle Cam is now live.

Oh, Wow.... the live feed today is beautiful!

I never expected it so early.... it is a welcome sight in this house this cold boring January!

Ahhhh...the cameras are better, the website improved, too.

Thanks for posting this diana!

This appears to be a NEW LINK.... so previous visitors need to bookmark the link on this thread.

thank you! what lovely creatures they are.:)

wow yes, that sure is a much improved view :)

If you click on the slide shows in the lower left, you can see right into the nest! This will be AWESOME!

Last season we were dealing with a dead spider on the lens
for the last 1/2 of the eaglets growing period which blocked alot of the views.

I am soooo excited! :trampoline:

On the blog there at WVEC is this link to a photographer at the Gardens who often posts his pictures of the eagles.

This link has some stunning pictures and some of just other nature subjects. All are copyrighted, and you cannot copy them off. But they are wonderful to look at and enjoy:


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There is a huge blizzard today at Norfolk!

Good thing the eggs haven't started yet!

Normally they don't get weather like this. I spoke on their chat one time to a local resident, and he said the weather is typically moderate.

Last year there was some snow, at Blackwater, and I have pictures saved of that. The eggs there were already hatched, and the nest survived ! But in Maine 2 years ago, a nest was lost, during a terrible storm, and the new chicks there died as a result.

Here is the link to the Blackwater cam....

Both eagles there are trying to keep their eggs warm:


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Lots of snow, etc.

The blog at Norfolk explains how eagles can manage to stay warm with snow on their backs even! Their feathers are highly insulating.

Wonderful pictures from the Blackwater cam...thanks Mrs.D. :)

Don't miss the hummingbird cam.... link is below in the regular list posts here on PETS.

We have a first egg of the season, as of 2:15 Sunday afternoon!

brrrr I see it is pretty cold there...hope they can keep that egg real cosy and warm

there are two eggs at Blackwater... link above...

At one point the eagle was totally covered with snow! But they appear to be doing well.

The blog states that the eagles are well insulated and can do this.
The first egg is typically left to incubate, slowly, anyway, so all eggs hatch around the same time.

But I agree, it looks really cold, and difficult!

Here is a video posted this morning of the egg laying:


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Popularity of this eagle site is very high this year. Today I saw on their chat that about 1000 people were online with it. And at that same time, I find, I cannot view it well anymore. There is a long lag in the picture showing up today. So I had to log off all my windows, here and elsewhere in order to view the eagles.

This might happen to others here, so I am just posting this to warn you, as the number of viewers increases you might have some trouble and have to wait for the screen to load!

Yesterday there was a terrible porn/spammer on the chat, and I guess they are trying to prevent that again. So don't be surprised if the chat is temporarily closed as well. They shut it down for hours for yesterday!

We have a second egg today... laid while I was taking a big nap!

There was a hint on the chatrooms today that if you cannot see the streaming video...to open your Media Player and keep the tab open on it. But today, I am not having the same problems I had yesterday. There are just huge numbers of people watching this season, so I guess we should expect some glitches.

Warning~~~

I do not recommend signing up for the chat they have there.
Scribble (whatever its called).

Today was a warning that a link that was posted went to a Trojan giving site instead of a real cam for another bird nesting.
The other day it was filled with obscene spam...

And today it wouldn't let me log on, and when I went thru the new password thing sent to me, it sent me some other link.

The whole chat thing IMO is not well run, and dangerous to your computer!

There is a live streaming chat...ongoing there, all the time. Are you talking about a chatroom Mrs.D?? :hug:

No, it is that live chat.... I am very hinky about it NOW.

Be careful. I signed in and have an avatar and everything...but each day I see some new awful warning...and today it wouldn't accept my password, and the fix password link just took me in circles. There is nothing wrong with my password!

They have a trojan warning on there this afternoon!

We have a 3rd egg today, laid around noon. In this weather!
The low predicted tonight for Norfolk is 20 deg F.

One has to wonder at these birds who can deal with this blizzard and cold temps and still remain vital.

The Blackwater cam, is pretty dismal too...but the eagles there are doing well also. They typically only lay 2 eggs there.

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WOW!

Another eagle mommy sitting in the SNOW?

Thanks... this one has sound too....neato.

And let's don't forget the Barn Owls...
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It also has sound. :grouphug:

and this blog..
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Today one of the Garden's workers put up this link to a video on YouTube.

It is a recording of what the eggs sound like when they are about to hatch.


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It is really interesting! They make quite a racket and certainly the parents then know the hatching is imminent!

If you click on other IWS videos there, some are really good.
One has a worker hand wearing an eagle glove! feeding a newly hatched chick.

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This is so the chick will imprint on the eagle and not the human!

Update today....
 

The hatching process has started at Blackwater:


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Blackwater Refuge has two new little eaglets! They are so cute, and survived all those storms!


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I loved this!

That was great!

I think eagles are very very intelligent. After watching the
Norfolk site for 3 seasons now, and others I think the eagles are just very smart and we didn't know that before!

They sure do take good care of their young. They have a long reproductive cycle, with a lot of care being needed for the babies. Most birds are "done" in 6 wks. But the eagles go months!. And the young do not breed for 5 years! They need that much experience and learning to be able to do it at all!

Thanks for the link...Alffe... I enjoyed it too!

Here is a link to Part II of the newly hatched chicks gallery at Blackwater:


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They are so cute at this stage!

The Norfolk family may hatch any day now. There is alot of buzz there on the Chat about it. (they have closed the chat to casual discussion and moved that to another link (FINALLY), so today it is all for the educational visitors, and confined to eagle biology.

We have the first eaglet at Norfolk this afternoon!

Approx time 1:10 pm

Things will be getting interesting now! ;)
Seems like they have been incubating for a LONG time.

We have 2 eaglets now hatched today!

The camera angles are good and they are quite cute.
The older one seems to be pecking at the new arrival too.

This morning the 3 eaglets are getting fed clearly, and the camera has zoomed in to show details we've never seen before! So close they fill the screen, and you can even see the nostrils on their beaks! How they swallow, etc. Amazing!

Fabulous pics today! Sun is shining, and the parent is not blocking the view!

The views now are just the best..... it is wonderful seeing these parents take care of the small eaglets. They are really growing quickly... a testament to the care and food brought for them!

Growing so quickly. This morning the 3 eaglets are lined up so politely getting a feeding right now. Sunny nice weather, and fascinating to watch!

Hi MrsD. I had been a regular there for awhile - hooosier - then was away for a couple weeks and wow three "bobbleheads"! Cute as can be.

Thanks for the updates.

Eaglets are scheduled to be banded next Wednesday, March 31 at 9:00 a.m. EDT. Follow the events in person at Norfolk Botanical Garden, or online on Eagle Cam.

Thanks, Alffe!

Seems earlier to me this year? Usually the eaglets have their gray down, and are larger when this is done.

They still seem small to me now. What do you think?

I thought the same thing Mrs.D but these folks are the professionals...maybe it's easier and less tramatic for the parents to do it when they are smaller. :confused:

Yeah... they screwed it up!

The second eaglet was too small for the band. I watched when they put them all back in the nest, and a little while later, one of the eaglets jumped up and flapped his wings... weird.

Next thing I knew.... I was multitasking with my gardening, here, and there, they called Nate the tree climber to come back and REMOVE the bands from the nest which had come off the eaglet! I guess they thought they might eat them!

The smallest eaglet wasn't even banded.

Soooooo. next month they will do it all again. Two of them to be banded and the largest one to get the mobile transmitter.
They were just too young and too small for this process.

Here is a link to show the close up photos of the banding:

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Get aload of those spectators behind the barricades!