Monthly Archives: January 2019

January 28, 2019: Decorah Eagles and Flyway Cam Nestflix!

N2B on January 28, 2019

Tonight’s Nestflix feature the Decorah eagles and a really fascinating video from the Flyway cam. In Decorah, Mom chases a subadult, a subadult chases DM2 (check the video out in slo-mo – it is pretty impressive!), and an attempt at copulation ends when Mom walks away in the middle of it. At the Flyway cam, three coyotes play and one mounts another – although this was a not a serious mating attempt as Janet Kessler of the excellent Coyote Yipps blog

January 25, 2019 Decorah Eagles Nestflix!

January 25, 2019: DM2 comes to the nest

Happy Fri-yay, everyone! The weather outside is frightful, but the eagles are delightful! Mom and DM2 have had a busy day keeping squirrels and crows at bay. We’ve also got video of a possible (and for eagles, very long) copulation and great close-ups of DM2 and nestorations. Enjoy and thanks to our camera operators and video makers for finding and sharing life on the nests with us, and to you for watching! Decorah Eagles 1/25/19: Crow scavengers asked to leave

Nest chronology: Egg timing!

Second egg for the Decorah Eagles!

This blog discusses the correlation between new mates, temperature, humidity, and egg-timing.  We’ve been getting questions about egg timing. Why did Mom and Dad lay eggs later in 2018? Overall, avian egg-timing in the temperate zone is heavily regulated by the light cycle. As the days begin to lengthen, birds’ gonads swell and produce sex hormones. Around the end of January, our bald eagle pairs switch from infrequent copulation to frequent, highly enthusiastic copulation, putting us on notice for egg

January 23, 2019: North Nestflix!

January 22, 2019: Female eagle DNF eats a squirrel on the North Nest

I don’t think I was the only one to groan at the sight of more snow on our Decorah nests this morning! Fortunately, the Decorah and Decorah North eagles are well-equipped to handle winter’s snow and cold. Given that a polar vortex is forecast to hit Decorah next week, we might see a little less of the eagles at both nests as they hunker down to conserve energy and stay warm! So what’s going on at the North Nest? A

January 22, 2019: Tuesday night at the movies!

January 21, 2019: Mom eating on N2B

Tonight’s Nestflix: Snowstorations! Mom and DM2 have a lot of snow removal to do after a storm dropped roughly ten inches in the Decorah area on January 18! They have been dealing with the snow by trampling it, covering it, digging in it, and brushing from the nest as they come and go. Normally we list videos from newest to oldest, but I thought it would be fun to see the nest emerge from the snow as the eagles worked

When will our eagles lay eggs? Bald eagle breeding in Iowa and Florida

Daylight Length Graph from Fort Meyers Florida

When will the Decorah and Decorah North eagles begin laying eggs? While nest timing can very from region to region (Florida, for example, is quite different from Iowa), mark your calendars as follows! In the nests we watch in Iowa and Colorado, bonding and copulating behaviors become more pronounced and frequent after the winter solstice. Female eagles begin laying eggs 5-10 days after productive copulation begins. This usually happens in mid-February at the Decorah and Fort St. Vrain nests. In

D27 Update

D27 Map from January 20. 2019

Thanks for the airmail, D27! D27 is currently running laps around the Decorah area and may have been in the vicinity of the hatchery and N2B on January 7th, 8th, and 12th! I checked back through our video record and found video on the 8th and 12th showing a juvenile eagle in the vicinity of nest. Was it D27? I can’t see a transmitter but thought I would share a clip and links to the original videos. Given her position

New female at Decorah North Nest

March 22, 2016: Mrs North

We have finished combing through archival photos from 2016 to present and have confirmed that we have our same male eagle (Mr. North) going into the 2019 nesting season, but we have had a change in our female eagle (Mrs. North). We are not sure what happened to Mrs. North to prompt this change, but we know it happened in the summer of 2018. With the crazy up and down year that 2018 was at the Decorah North Nest, this

January 17th, 2019: Nestflix from Decorah and Decorah North!

January 16, 2019: Mom steals a piece of fish from DM2

Time to Nestflix and chill! Tonight we have videos from Decorah and Decorah North. In Decorah, Mom and DM2 continue piling the nest high and deep with warm, soft bedding. Cornstalks and grass make excellent insulation against snow and rain – a good thing, since winter weather will finally be arriving tomorrow! At Decorah North, the male and female eagle are also bust bringing nest materials in. I enjoyed all of these videos but I especially liked Mom’s fish steal

January 14, 2019: Nestflix with the Decorah Eagles!

January 14, 2019: DM2 at N2B

Nestflix! Tonight’s stars: Mom and DM2. Relatively warm weather and increasing daylight length and intensity have both of them busy with nestorations, stick delivery, and bonding. We usually have specific recommendations, but I loved every one of these videos. Watch them all the way through our pick your favorite moments! Thanks so much to our camera operators and video makers for finding and sharing special moments with all of us!   Decorah Eagles   1/14/19: Mom closeups, flight to nearby

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