Decorah North Bald Eagle Cam

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Welcome to the Decorah North Eagles! We hope you enjoy watching and learning with us! Click the livestream to watch and scroll down the page to learn more about the eagles and their surroundings. For branch ID, follow this link. For pasture perches, follow this link!

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About the Decorah North Eagles

About the Eagles

The Decorah North eagles are nesting on private property north of Decorah, Iowa. Their nest is located in a white oak tree in a scrap of forest bordering a valley. A stream is located across a field where cattle are pastured. In general, the eagles begin courtship in October, productive mating in late January or early February, and egg-laying in mid to late February. Hatching usually begins in late March to early April, and the eaglets fledge in mid-to-late June. While young usually disperse between August and October, the adults remain on territory year round.

The eagles eat live and dead fish, squirrels, other birds, rabbit, muskrat, deer, possum and anything else they can catch or find. To learn more about bald eagles in general, please follow this link to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website.

Adults
Decorah North Bald Eagles: DNF and Mr. North

Decorah North Bald Eagles: DNF and Mr. North

The male is known as Mr. North.  The female is the Decorah North Female, or DNF, who replaced Mrs. North in the summer of 2018. We don’t know exactly how or when it happened. You can read more about it here: https://www.raptorresource.org/2019/01/20/north-nest-announcement/

Nests

The first nest at the North site was built in a pine tree. The branches collapsed after the second nesting season and the eagles moved to a dead elm tree. They nested there for just one year before moving to their current location in late 2013. In August of 2018, their nest collapsed and slid or fell out of the nest tree during an extremely heavy storm. None of the tree branches were broken or damaged, so we decided to build a starter nest in the same spot. 2020 will mark their seventh season and fourth nest on this territory.

  • 2018: A female eagle (DNF, or Decorah North Female) replaces Mrs. North over the summer. The nest falls out of the tree following a storm in late August. Kike Arnal and Amy Ries build a starter nest in mid-September. Mr. North and DNF adopt it in October.
  • 2015: RRP adds cameras to the North Nest in September.
  • 2013: The tree falls. The eagles begin a new nest in a white oak tree.
  • 2011: The branches holding the nest collapse. The eagles build a new nest in a dead elm tree.
  • 2009: A pair of eagles establishes the Decorah North territory, building a nest in a white pine tree.

The North nest is 56 feet off the ground.

  • In 2021, the nest was 8.25 feet at its longest point and 6.25 feet at its widest point. Measured outermost stick to outermost stick, the nest measured 12 feet across. We can’t really get a height on it, since we can’t get anywhere near the bottom and the nest slopes downward from the top. Our best guess is six feet high at its tallest measure.
  • In 2019, the nest was seven feet long at its longest point, four feet wide at its widest point, was about 3.5 feet high, and had a perimeter of roughly 18 feet.
Quick facts
Common name: Bald Eagle
Scientific name: Haliaeetus leucocephalus
Length: 2.3–3.1 feet | 71–96 cm
Wingspan: 5.9 – 7.5 feet | 1.7-2.2 meters
Weight: 6.5 – 13.8 pounds | 3–6.3 kilograms
Lifespan: Up to 40 years in the wild

Bald Eagle Vocalization

Learn More About Bald Eagles

Development of an avian embryo

Peek inside a bald eagle egg: 24 days!

As of this writing, there are two eagle eggs at Decorah North. The youngest is just over 22 days old and the oldest is just over 25 days old. We anticipate that the oldest egg will hatch on or around the morning of March 23. . What do embryonic eagles look they look like as they develop and grow inside their eggs? Dr. Peter Sharpe from the Institute for Wildlife Studies developed a table of bald eagle embryonic development based

March 30, 2018: Mrs. North's brood patch

What is a brood patch?

Daylight length, or photoperiod, strongly influences hormone production in birds. In the northern hemisphere, our story begins shortly after the winter solstice in December. As daylight length increases, a cascade of hormones causes birds’ gonads to swell in preparation for reproduction, egg-laying, and incubation. In this blog, we’ll discuss the role the brood patch plays in incubation and determining clutch size. How do bald eagles keep their eggs warm in subzero temperatures? They apply heat via a special area of

Chicken embryos roughly 25% of the way to hatch

Peek inside a bald eagle egg: 11 days!

What do embryonic eagles look they look like as they develop and grow inside their eggs? Dr. Peter Sharpe from the Institute for Wildlife Studies developed a table of bald eagle embryonic development based on work done by Hamburger and Hamilton (1951). While not all bald eagle eggs hatch in 35 days, the stages of development look something like this… What happens between the third and the 11th day? When we last touched on the topic, our embryonic eagle had

An embryonic bird in very early stages of development. It has a top, bottom, front, back, left and right sides, and layers.

Peek inside a bald eagle egg: 4 days!

What do embryonic eagles look they look like as they develop and grow inside their eggs? Peek inside a Bald Eagle egg at four days!

An egg in cross section, modified from Romanoff and Romanoff, 1949

How long does it take a bald eagle to lay an egg?

How long does it take a bald eagle to lay an egg? We think that female bald eagles begin laying eggs five to ten days after productive mating begins.

Click for More About Bald Eagles
News

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March 18, 2024: HD visits the N1 tree, upsetting the geese.

March 18, 2024: NestFlix and Chill!

We have your Monday NestFlix, but let’s look at the week ahead before we put our feet up and chill! We’re looking forward to hatch beginning at Decorah North on Saturday or Sunday, first eggs at peregrine falcon sites (my bet’s on Dubuque for the first egg at a nest we monitor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFtQqGanrX0) and a possible return of winter weather later this week! Well, we’re not really looking forward to that last one, but we are curious about what egg-laying

March 13, 2024: I want to reach in and remove this! Mr. North and DNF are undergoing some body molt right now, and the feathers end up EVERYWHERE!

March 13, 2024: News and NestFlix from Decorah North, Trempealeau, and the Geese!

Happy Hump Day, everyone! Before we get into the NestFlix, a quick calendar round-up: Thanks so much for all you do: for watching, sharing, learning, and especially for caring! Among many other things, we’re busy trying to document nesting peregrine falcons right now, so if you get a band number, give me an email: [email protected] Decorah North Nest March 12, 2024: Days end beauty – https://youtu.be/v80-BsYduuc?si=xLCvtuYk-LI_lKWG. A lovely video with great views of Mr. North, the eggs (2:27), the nest

Two coyote siblings hang out together. Photo by Janet Kessler.

Coyotes and Coyote Vocalizations: A guest blog by Janet Kessler of Coyote Yipps!

Followers were so fascinated by the coyotes singing near the North Nest that I invited Janet Kessler, a coyote expert from San Francisco, to do a guest blog on them. You can learn more about her here and subscribe to her blog, Coyote Yipps, here: https://coyoteyipps.com/. Thanks for taking the time to do this, Janet – I learned a lot! Thank you so much for sharing your live-cam video with me with the amazing coyote howls off-camera in the background!

Development of an avian embryo

Peek inside a bald eagle egg: 24 days!

As of this writing, there are two eagle eggs at Decorah North. The youngest is just over 22 days old and the oldest is just over 25 days old. We anticipate that the oldest egg will hatch on or around the morning of March 23. . What do embryonic eagles look they look like as they develop and grow inside their eggs? Dr. Peter Sharpe from the Institute for Wildlife Studies developed a table of bald eagle embryonic development based

March 6, 2024: Mr. North appears to be shedding a tear, but it isn't a tear or extra-renal salt removal (which is pretty cool, TBH). It's a remarkably well-placed raindrop!

March 8, 2024: News and NestFlix from around our nests!

Congratulations to the Fort St. Vrain Eagles on their third egg! We haven’t passed the solstice yet, but spring has sprung: almost all of the birds we watch are busy laying eggs, tending eggs, protecting territory, courting, and/or copulating right now! We’ve been working hard and hope to have a few cool surprises for everyone in the weeks to come, but in the meantime, kick up your feet, grab a beverage, and soar into the weekend with our NestFlix raptor

>> More News
Nest Records
Decorah North Eagles 2024 Nesting Record
Egg Laying
DNF laid egg #1 @ 2:12 PM on February 15.
DNF laid egg #2 @ 2:49 PM on February 18.
Hatching
We’re guesstimating that hatch will happen on Saturday, March 23, in the morning. But it could be a little earlier or a little later than that.
Fledging
TBD

Eaglets and Outcomes: Detailed Annual Information

Year Nest Parents Eaglets Known Outcomes
2023 DN4 Mr. North, DNF None DNF laid one egg but abandoned incubation two days after laying it. Mr. North incubated their lone egg, which most likely froze before it cracked. She did not reclutch.
2022 DN4 Mr. North, DNF DN15, DN16 DN15 and DN16 both fledged successfully! As of late July, the two were exploring the North Valley and improving their flight skills. We saw some black flies here, but there were not enough to drive the young from the nest.
2021 DN4 Mr. North, DNF DN13, DN14 DN13 and DN14 both fledged successfully! As of early July, 2021, the two were exploring the North Valley and improving their flight skills. Black flies were not an issue at this nest in 2021.
2020 DN4 Mr. North, DNF DN11, DN12 DN11 died at 5:56 AM on April 10. It appeared to have an obstruction in its throat that it could not clear. DN12 fledged successfully.
2019 DN4 Mr. North, DNF DN9, DN10 DNF laid two eggs beginning on February 21st. Both hatched beginning on March31, but DN10 died shortly after hatch. DN9 abandoned the nest early following an intense blackfly swarm. David Kester from the Raptor Resource Project rescued him. He was cared for by SOAR and released in the fall of 2019.
2018 DN3 Mr. North, Mrs. North DN7, DN8 Mrs. North laid one egg on 2/25/18. That egg broke in the wee hours of March 16. She reclutched on 4/12, laying two eggs. Both eggs hatched, but the eaglets succumbed to heat and blackfly bites on May 25.
2017 DN3 Mr. North, Mrs. North DN4, DN5, DN6 DN6 died of hypothermia shortly after hatch. DN4 and DN5 survived and fledged.
2016 DN3 Mr. North, Mrs. North DN1, DN2, DN3 3 eggs hatched. DN3 died of cold and
malnourishment on May 11. Sibling
aggression was a significant factor. DN2
was killed by contaminated prey on
May 25th. DN1 survived to fledge.

We often get questions about where the eaglets go after they disperse. We have never tracked eaglets from this nest, but we have tracked eaglets from the Decorah nest. For more information, visit our eagle maps.

Decorah North Eagles Video Library

Decorah North Eagles Video Library

Click the hamburger icon on the top right of the video below to view a full list of videos from our most recent playlist, or visit our youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/RaptorResourceProject.