Jordan Lake. We can look at this photo in two ways. We can see that the female 3-year-old bald eagle has a wing length of ~7ft. The female osprey has a wing length of ~ 5ft. The fish, well, has a fin length of ~ 4 ins. Or we can look at the fact that the bald eagle weighs ~ 12#, the osprey weighs ~ 6#, the fish that the eagle wants to steal weighs about a pound… the osprey is carrying ~ a quarter of its own weight.
Jordan lake. 1st chick seen this year at the nest. The afternoon backlighting of the nest made the chick sparkle. The chick is at the light green arrow. There may be a possible chick at the light pink arrow but we will have to wait to see them both at the same time to know for sure.
Jordan Lake. Oh, joy! I managed to photograph a chick in the nest with mom Kate. The arrow is pointing at the baby underneath her chest area (above arrow). You can see a silhouette of the head and beak as the chick is facing to the right. Too many shadows for me to have any idea yet of the age of this one.
Jordan Lake. One foot strike / death / life / anticipation / caught / both fish and photo / dawn’s cycle / unites / raptor / fish / human
Jordan Lake. First Nest. Kate and Bard have a chick or chicks that have hatched. 1) Kate is very proud to be a parent. 2) Mom Kate had been feeding chick(s) below my line of sight then stopped and looked very hard at her youngsters. It will be a while before we actually see the chicks.
Jordan Lake. We have not seen Dad Pitch or Mom Loblolly in their nest for a week. No eggs in the nest. Have not had a recent closeup of Pitch to know how his injury is doing. All of this means that this breeding season for this pair of bald eagles has ended without any chicks. I honestly do not know why there were no eggs laid: some possibilities could’ve been marauding immature eagles or the injury to Dad Pitch or interference caused by visitors or a combination of those or other factors. If I see Dad Pitch again close enough to know how he is doing I will definitely let you know. In the meantime we can all hold onto our thoughts, prayers and meditations for the next breeding season starting in December. Thank you again for all your love, concern and vast amounts of energy, in so many ways, in your efforts to provide Loblolly and Pitch the best of protection by trying to get the gate to shelter eight closed. Peace and grace, Doc Ellen
doc ellen's journey 