Sit down on the Confusion Couch and get ready for another episode of ‘As The Nest Turns’! John visited Decorah yesterday to check on N3 and see what Mom and DM2 were doing. He stopped at Walmart at 11:25 and saw two eagles – presumably Mom and DM2 – perched in the branches above N3. At 12:15, John took off for the hatchery, where he saw an adult eagle perched on the bluff.
Could Mom or DM2 have beaten John to the hatchery? It seems unlikely, since neither of the two eagles we saw in N2B yesterday looked like Mom or DM2. They worked on the nest for a bit before flying off to the east. While neither Mom nor DM2 issued a challenge, we did see Mom on the Y-branch later in the day and both eagles perched on M2 this morning.
So what to make of all this? We’ve speculated that other eagles could take N2B over, although Mom and DM2 seem disinclined to sell their former home as of this post. The way that the unknown eagles putzed around in N2B makes me wonder if they don’t have a nest of their own somewhere in the area: John saw them fly off to the east and Robin has reported eagles flying off to the southwest. But – my head is spinning as the nest turns! – if all of the eagles we saw on Saturday night and Sunday morning were the same pair, they hung around for nearly a day. Surely a territorial pair of eagles with their own nest wouldn’t spend almost an entire day on another eagle’s territory!
As we so often do, we’ll have to trust the eagles, cross our talons, and see what the future holds. In the meantime, we have plenty of room on the Confusion Couch and a whole lot of popcorn for all of of you watchers! Thanks so much for watching with us. 🦅🦅🦅
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