Roses are Red/Violets are blue/Eagles are Tweet/And So Are You! Thanks so much to CamOp Coqui for today’s Valentine’s Day card and to all of you for watching, sharing, learning, and especially for caring. We hope your Valentine’s Day was especially tweet: kick up your feet and grab the chocolates for tonight’s NestFlix round-up! 🦅❤️
Decorah North Eagles
February 14, 2022: Valentine’s Day mate date for Mr. North and DNF – https://youtu.be/KLFHdw6Bwew. The video opens with a lovely Valentine’s Day duet before the pair enjoy their Valentine’s Day mate date!
Eagles need to copulate a lot to assure that sperm is at the infundibulum, or site of fertilization, when an ovum emerges, so frequent copulation is a sign that egg-laying is drawing near! Our guess is February 19, but it could be a little earlier or a little later than that. Mr. North and DNF copulated four times today that we saw and heard: an excellent Valentine’s Day, complete with food gifts, for the Decorah North eagles!
February 13, 2022: The North nestivities are in full swing! Mr. North, left: DNF, right.
February 14, 2022: More nest bowl games – https://youtu.be/VyCIQrfUdO0. The nestivities continue as Mr. North and DNF get ready for eggs and young! I especially enjoyed DNF moving in on Mr. North at 30 seconds. He doesn’t seem to want to leave but, as he so often does, gives up his spot graciously and continues working on the nest. There’s no place like Home Tweet Home!
February 14, 2022: DNF in the North nest bowl
February 13, 2022: The North’s super bowl – https://youtu.be/qfPTVjW0b94. Who will win the egg cup? Watch the 4th minute and find out! I really enjoyed this video – in addition to the great nestcapades, look for an excellent balloon mantle by DNF in the fifth minute, a beautiful look at both eagles in the seventh minute, and some extraordinary close-ups starting at 9:02.
Decorah Eagles
February 14, 2022: DM2 at N1
February 14, 2022: Mom eats a fish and DM2 brings a stick to N1 – https://youtu.be/ZilKyhic4Ws. I hope Mom and DM2 know that moving back to N1 would be better than a box of chocolate! I enjoyed seeing Mom, but the real treat was seeing DM2 bring a stick in at 13:29 and digging in the nest a bit before flying to perch on the Y-Branch.
We still think that Mom and DM2 will probably nest at N3: like Mr. North and DNF, they should be spending a lot of time on the nest bowl and egg cup, not hauling in a branch here or there. But Mom usually lays eggs a little later and we can’t stop hoping they will return! We’ll know soon one way or another, since Mom’s average lay date is around February 24 – just ten days from now.
Mississippi Flyway
February 14, 2022: Are you a hawk or an eagle? https://youtu.be/0t2LJfw6lQk. Based on what we can see, I believe this is a dark morph rough-legged hawk. Check 37 seconds and you’ll see feathered legs, a white patch on the rump, a hawk-like face, and pale/white underwings. Cornell notes that ‘Dark morph is mostly brown with contrasting white in the wings and tail”: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Rough-legged_Hawk/id.
February 14, 2022: Coyote in the snow – https://youtu.be/lVJCy5IwHSY. A canid is a canid is a canid! I especially liked seeing this coyote lounging in the snow beginning at around 53 seconds.
The Raptor Resource Project