[SuziQ]

Awesome pictures! The kids and I stumbled onto a website a few years back that had a camera trained on the nest of a pair of bald eagles. We were able to see the eggs when they were laid, watch them as the parents took turns sitting on them, then as they hatched, one at a time. One of the eggs hatched a day before the other one, and that one gobbled up the second one's food, for the most part, before the little one could get it. As a result, the second one didn't survive.

Just after that, we went to a place out in Central MA where a man takes in injured birds, specifically raptors, nurses them to health, then releases them back into the wild. He had two pet eagles, one bald and one golden, both with injuries that kept them from flying. We were just amazed at how hugh they actually were!

He said that he watches several bald eagle nests in the area, and when he sees that there are two eggs, he waits for the birds to leave, then climbs up, takes one of the eggs, and incubates it at his place. When it hatches, he feeds it with the use of an Eagle puppet so that it never sees him. When it is nice and strong, he takes it back to its nest. He said that he has NEVER seen a chick rejected by the parents after it mysteriously shows up in the nest. The kids thought that was just SO cool!

[thackney]

Thanks,

Those pictures are all from within 600 feet of my house. The eagles are typical for a winter day, the sky was not.

We usually have 1 to 4 dozen hanging around. When the snow melts they spread out more through the valley of Eagle River. Typically there is a couple hundred in the valley, IIRC.