CATCHING UP WITH THE EAGLES

 

I spent part of a recent morning in the company of North Fort Myers' growing eaglets.    Both are doing well and are nearly as big as their parents. E-7 fledged April 16 and takes daily short flights around the pasture.  E-8, just a day younger, has not yet fledged.   He may be a little slow because he had some trauma during his growing days (see paragraph highlighted in red at this link).  

 

 

When I arrived at the pasture , E-7 was sitting on a branch above the nest looking proud of her(?)self. While I was admiring her through my view finder, she suddenly flew off the branch.  Of course, I froze  in awe and got nothing but sky in my  picture… but, fortunately, she didn't go far, landing on a snag tree just a few feet away.

 

 

 

The top two pictures are the closest I got to a flight shot.  She's just landed and it looks like she's looking down to see exactly how high up she is!  She sat there quite a while.   I looked back to the nest tree to see if I could spot E-8, the younger sibling. 

 

 

I found E-8   perched on a branch near the webcam apparatus.  But of course, almost as soon as I focused on him,   I heard some commotion and realized that E-7 had flown off the snag.  This time I  almost got a decent flight shot  — the picture on the right above is  E-7 – almost home to the pine and being chased by an inquisitive (or stupid) crow.     

 

 

 This picture shows the nest tree — the shorter pine almost in the middle of the picture. To its right (in the picture) is the leaning  snag where E-7 landed (you can see both the eagles if you click to enlarge.)    This picture is taken without using the zoom lens and gives a better idea of how far away I was standing.

 

After that, both siblings hung out together in the nest tree for quite a while.  Do you think E-8 was asking his older sibling what it was like to fly off the nest tree?  Or do you think he was lecturing her because she left him all alone?

 

While I was there, Harriet flew in and out of the nest quickly.  She may have deposited food.  Both Eagle parents are practicing constructive neglect — teaching the babies to get along without them.  But they will continue to bring food occasionally until the babies leave.   

I left the nest site after a while to go across the street  to get groceries for our own 'nest'.  Toward evening, it began to pour down rain .  Glad to be home and dry with plenty to eat, I hoped that both babies were snug in their nest and did not spend the whole rainy and breezy night on that branch.

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LINKING to SEASONS (thanks Jesh); to OUR WORLD on Tuesday (thank you to Lady Fi, Gattina, Arija, Sandy, Sylvia, and Jenn); to NATURE NOTES (thank you Michelle); to WILD BIRD WEDNESDAY (thank you Stewart) and to Nature Footsteps TREES (thank you Monica).