raptorresource First fledge confirmed the morning of 6/13/12, although we don’t know who it was!
From Sue She on YouTube:
Published on Jun 13, 2012 by Sue She
The view of what was happening at the nest at the time of first fledge for the 2012 season. Official fledge time was 750am cdt. On video, note the flight at 7:45:18 cdt.
This morning’s branching confirmation, where Eagle D12 goes to the Y-branch and back to the nest:
D12 on Y-branch with Mom, 6-9-2012:
The Decorah Bald Eagles are very close to being on the wing!Bald Eagle flying is a process with steps like exercising the wing muscles (wingercising). The eaglets wingercise at the edge of the nest cup. This process takes some time. At the same time, the flight feathers are developing. Next in the process is hovering and then branching, where the bird sort of hop-flys to a branch and back to the nest. What will happen next is that a puff of wind will catch them, and they will find themselves in flight.
This morning, a panner happened to be present to film the eagle D12 (the oldest of three) branching.
Raptor Resource Project states:
1
Questions of the Week
When will they fly?
Learning to fly is a process. They are currently wingercizing. This entails flapping their wings and hopping. Late in the wingercizing phase, a gust of wind will lift them accidentally, and they will hover over the nest because their muscles are strong enough to hold their wings in the correct position and their flight feathers are long enough to sustain the lift.
Branching comes after that. Branching is defined as a small hop and lift onto the closest branch. Unless there is a panner present at the time, we will not see this first very small journey away from the nest to the branch.
Fledge or first self-propelled flight away from and back to the nest tree comes last.
The whole process last 10-13 weeks.
Last night at midnight, an owl visited the nest quite suddenly. Mom and Dad were not amused, and they reacted with calls and posturing. Everyone in the nest is fine. This is not Mom and Dad’s first kick at the can (see next video depicting the same scenario last year):
Decorah Eagles Owl Intruder at Midnight 4-14-12 11:52pm CDT
This is not the first time. Last year, the owl intruder visited more than once. Here is a clip:
Decorah Eagle gets attacked by Owl Second night in a row
Uploaded by 989razzle on Mar 29, 2012
D12 & D13 work out the pecking order in the nest cup. This is a behavioral mechanism that establishes dominance and ensures success in the species
Decorah Eagle Cam Link 24/7. Infrared lighting at night dies not affect the eagles. http://www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles By the way, I tried to post the nice ready-to-click box with the arrow last night (It worked last year) and I got one of those red end-of-the-world box warnings. I removed the nice picture and replaced it with the link. The internet-destruction-for-sure great big red warning box remained. I finally gave up. This morning, I see that the internet is still operational. A while back, there was mention of some technical classes on this sort of thing. Will LiveCams be allowed? 238,314,750 current Live Views on this cam so far – seems like it would not be a problem, malware-wise. Is this a copyright issue perhaps?
In the above video, D12 and D13 are scuffling. D14 has not yet hatched. Well, here is D14’s belly button. He was hatched on 3-3-2012:
D12, D13, and D14 are the names of this year’s eaglets.
How do you tell Mom from Dad? Here is an instructional. Mom and Dad take turns at the nest. The eggs take 35 days to incubate. During this time, Mom or Dad may leave the eggs alone. This is not to be mean; it is to cool the eggs and keep a consistent temperature. Mom and Dad also turn the eggs frequently to keep the developing tissues from sticking to the side of the eggs. When they finish turning the eggs, they do their famous “shimmy,” where the shake their tail back and forth to position themselves onto the eggs for a sitting session. The shimmy is one of the most adorable things you will ever see.
Here is how to tell Mom from Dad:
Also, if you are a bird or eagle fan, you may also be interested in the Alcoa, Iowa eagle live cam. These babies hatched prior to the Decorah Eagles:
Quote from this site, which, by the way, has the most adorable little wing knobs on any bird I have ever seen:
A pair of bald eagles joined the Alcoa Davenport community in Iowa in 2009. They built their 7-foot nest on our 400-acre facility in a tree near the Mississippi River. In the spring of 2010 they fledged a pair of eaglets and later that year we installed our first Eaglecam. We recently launched a new camera with improved video streaming. Employees and the community helped name the eagle pair Liberty and Justice. In April 2011, an online poll named the single eaglet they fledged this year “Freedom”.
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