Jordan Lake. First Nest. Dad Bard landed in the nest with a small fish. All 3 chicks were watching his feet. They knew where the fish was. Then there was a shoving match to see who would end up with the fish. It was Big Chick that won the fish. All three chicks are doing well. Arrows in first photo point to the 3 chicks.
Jordan Lake. All three of the TRIPLETS are alive and doing well! Captain Doug and I managed to get out today to monitor our nests after the big rain, high lake levels and wind. Dad Bard is feeding his chicks. Second photo with arrows so that y’all can see where all three chicks were in the nest. I hope all of you are smiling as big as I am.
Jordan Lake. First Nest. Bald eagle chicks soon begin to exercise their wings and chest muscles in anticipation of eventual flight. I call this exercise “wing wapping”. As you can see the exercise can get quite vigorous. At one point the chick that is wing wapping is annoying the other two chicks.
Jordan Lake. First Nest. Yesterday had intermittent rain showers. 1st photo the biggest chick has rain splatters all over her dark brown feathers. 2nd photo she got mad and shook the rain off because eagles really do not like getting wet. 3rd photo: all three chicks and mom Kate. I included a photo to help you locate all four birds.
Jordan Lake. First Nest. Triplets!!! Kate and Bard have three chicks. The usual number of chicks in a nest is two – 3 is uncommon. The small chick laying across the front of the nest is probably the youngest of the 3. Sometimes eggs are laid and hatched several days apart. The 2 bigger chicks are looking up at Dad Bard – you can see the back of his head and his tail.
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.
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