Sorry, everyone – it has been a very busy week and I’m behind on the NestFlix! Read on to catch up on the latest news: new eagles in Decorah, rapidly growing eaglets at Decorah North, and Mother Goose and her eggs (we’re still looking for hatch on the 25th!). Thank you so much for watching, sharing, learning, and especially for caring! What a wild, interesting year it has been. Cross your fingers for all of our birds!
Decorah North Eagles
April 17, 2022: A beautiful family portrait at the North nest.
April 17, 2022: Togetherness on the nest – https://youtu.be/FeZ1n_mwwVE. What a magnificent family portrait! I don’t have much else to say, other than that I loved seeing everyone on the nest together! Listen for Canada geese, red-winged blackbirds, and other spring and summer birds in the background.
April 17, 2022: Growing feet & pinfeathers – https://youtu.be/0p-RprcNIP8. This is an excellent close-up video with great eaglet detail! Yellow clown clompers with long black talons at the beginning. Tiny pinfeathers at 14 seconds! Grey little bodies with dandelion puffs of thermal down throughout. A pink eaglet tongue and mouth at 2:33. And check out DN15 next to DNF at 3:24. Our little eaglets are getting big!
April 17, 2022: A handsome Tom turkey at the North Nest
April 17, 2022: Turkey show-off! https://youtu.be/iOfuY_y19f0. Who’s a handsome Tom? You’re a handsome Tom! Years ago, I talked to a kid who was showing turkeys at our county fair. He told me that they are the most American birds because their heads are red, white, and blue. This Tom turkey made me think of him.
Did Benjamin Franklin really suggest a wild turkey instead of a bald eagle? Looking at this turkey, it’s hard to disparage him for it! But he was actually satirizing the Society of the Cincinnati. Only Revolutionary War officers – not common soldiers – and their first-born male children could join. Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson were at odds about some things, but they all felt that this was validating the idea of a hereditary nobility common in Europe, but foreign to the democratic ideals of the new United States. Franklin was a complicated man and his disdain didn’t stop him from accepting a honorary membership. His famous letter gets pretty snarky once you know how to read it! https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-41-02-0327.
April 15, 2022: DN15 finds a bone and DN16 is curious – https://youtu.be/UyxpGUcOKWE. Eaglets are curious, always interested in food, and do a great deal of exploring and learning with their mouths…so thank goodness DN15 found a small bone! Mr. North brought in a duck on April 13 (perhaps a mallard?) and this looks like the last of the nestovers.
April 17, 2022: DN15 slumbers blissfully away in the North nest
April 15, 2022: DN15 and DN16 cuteness – https://youtu.be/LGREVBKNeG8. An extremely cute video! DN16 is left, DN15 is right, and they are alternately nibbling, cuddling, and giving beak kisses.
Decorah Eagles and Canada Geese
April 10, 2022: A new pair of eagles in a deeply treasured place. Will they stay?
April 18, 2022: New BE pair bring nest material to N1, work on sticks, test fit – https://youtu.be/CUlblsl2suQ. We get to see Mother Goose before the camera switches to the eagles. Will they lay eggs? How serious are these nestorations? We don’t know, but eagles have been documented laying eggs at this latitude up to the very end of April.
April 18, 2022: Mrs. Goose in N2B
April 17, 2022: Mrs Goose rolls the eggs – https://youtu.be/MVqSZM_lMEg. I know it’s a Canada Goose. I know that not everyone is excited about geese. But I think she is beautiful and I really enjoy watching her at N1. Geese might not be as magnificent as bald eagles, but they are part of the success story of the Clean Water Act. Dead and dying waterways and water bodies rebounded. Vegetation came back. Marine life came back. Birds came back and their populations swelled, nourished by plants, invertebrates, fish, frogs, and other creatures that had also returned. I don’t like stepping in goose poop, but it’s an excellent reminder that no goose poop at all would be so much worse.
April 13, 2022: Eagles on the Y & Geese chasing a sub-adult bald eagle – https://youtu.be/kZIgopFV7AM. Perhaps the eagles wouldn’t agree with me about geese! John saw a goose chase DM2 away from the bluff last year, and on April 13 we saw geese interacting with a sub-adult bald eagle (the video says hawk, but this is not a hawk). Go to 1:25 to see two geese interact with the eagle and 1:52 (you might need to slow it down) to see the eagle following the geese!
We’re not really sure what is happening here. One of the geese appeared to strike the eagle at about 1:25, but both geese rapidly peeled off and the eagle went on its way, seemingly undisturbed. I’ve sometimes seen multiple species in great kettles. They will spiral up in the same airspace – not really chasing, but willing to interact with one another where their paths cross. This looks like that sort of interaction to me: brief, unsustained, and occurring in an airspace so busy it might be hard not to cross paths sometimes!
The Raptor Resource Project