Happy Fri-yay everyone! Sit down and chill with Nestflix from the North and Fort St. Vrain eagle nests. We have Nest Improvements with DNF and Mr. North, inquisitive deer, lunch invaders, and…is a Golden Eagle pestering Pa at the Fort St. Vrain nest? We see it only very briefly, but Fort St. Vrainers especially take note: the eagle that rockets through at 5:19 appears to have booted or feathered legs!
Decorah North Eagles
November 14, 2024: Nest Improvement with DNF and Mr. North – https://youtu.be/FRb0cUOcnbQ. Time to get those fall nestorations done before the snow flies! Mr. North and DNF are making trip after trip to Nest Depot and piling up the sticks. I liked everything in this video, but I especially enjoyed DNF decorah-ating Mr. North with a stick at 18 seconds, a glimpse of the nest from above at 2:32 – look at that beautiful golden ring of corn husks!– a little Beakerson’s moment at 2:00, and a gorgeous closeup of DNF at 4:44.
November 15, 2024: Nest improvement with Mr. North and DNF!
Light pulls many strings in a bird’s body! Fans are asking about nestorations and copulation at our Trempealeau Eagle nest. Will Mrs. T lay eggs soon? Not until February. More here: https://www.raptorresource.org/2024/11/15/flashback-blog-when-will-our-eagles-lay-eggs-bald-eagle-breeding-in-iowa-and-florida/.
November 14, 2024: DNF with the definition of a wonky stick – https://youtu.be/_UNYH7BtMyY?si=pZ9gs07MMuENcG8m. Wonky sticks are a pain in the tail, but – as we see in this video – they lock the nest together and help keep it from sliding by catching on everything! DNF flies into the nest with a large, very wonky stick – did you get that in the clearance bin, DNF? – and tries to place it. It snags on other sticks, catches under her wings, pokes up beneath her tail, and doesn’t seem to fit anywhere! The stick catches her wing at 2:00, is pinned beneath her foot at 2:08, and wraps around her shoulders at 2:58! But DNF has a plan for the stick and eventually places it!
November 15, 2024: Installing new flooring. The North Nest looks cozy enough to nap in!
November 14, 2024: Beautiful buck close-up – https://youtu.be/GQvoxoWbgws?si=DeVGl9d86BPOucKK, camop captures a beautiful buck: https://youtu.be/Zk_iQZQg-Rg?si=7nHfwWTzk5s-1NGC, morning deer activity in the valley: https://youtu.be/s51kEdXb9KY?si=sqRqNwqYTZGSeXDA. If you hunt or drive through deer habitat in Iowa, Minnesota, or Wisconsin, you know that the rut is on! Mature bucks are sporting thick necks and beautiful racks, checking scrapes, making rubs, and chasing restless, running estrus does. They swivel from mostly tracking threats to mostly tracking does and every deer seems to be dashing in front of cars with reckless abandon. It’s a regular buck-analia out there!
November 14, 2024: A handsome buck steals the spotlight!
Healthy deer move every day to find food and cover, but during the rut, buck movements increase roughly 40% and daily distances almost double. Still, even the most libidinous buck has to rest at some point. So what does a buck’s bedroom look like? Bucks like cover: thick vegetation where they can hide, rest, and ruminate. They also have ‘bedrooms’ – literally, since they are bedding down – all over the landscape. A study conducted by the University of Mississippi found that bucks may use 10 or more bedding areas in a month.
This buck was not bedding when our camera operators found him, but he was in some thick brush. He’s surrounded by tall, impenetrable thickets of multiflora rose, berry cane, gooseberry, and fallen box elder trees. Cow paths/game trails wind upward into even thicker brush that provides excellent cover not far from foraging opportunities in the pasture: in short, deer paradise! Watch for more deer before they all seemingly disappear next month.
Xcel Energy Fort St. Vrain Eagles
November 15, 2024: It’s nestover time! https://youtu.be/iEB9ySOcPzE. I love seeing the different environments that surround our nests in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Colorado. Ma and Pa FSV are nesting at Xcel Energy’s Fort St. Vrain plant on the dry sandy plains of eastern Colorado about 35-40 miles east of the Front Range, which means magpies tend to make up the Merry Maids! The video opens with a magpie foraging for scraps in the nest. A subadult comes in at 48 seconds, bumping the magpie off the nest’s center, but not away from the nest. The eagle flies off at 1:00 and the magpie returns to its feast. But wait! Pa rockets into the nest at 1:11, almost overshooting it! The hungry mapgpie watches from the rails and is soon joined by another. The two annoy Pa, but the eagle intruder at 5:19 really puts his feathers up! But wait – there’s more! At 5:24, a juvenile eagle flies into the nest. Pa doesn’t want to share and chases it off. Enough already! After chasing off the pesky magpies, Pa finishes his meal in peace.
November 14, 2024: Check out that booted leg. My eye was initially captured by the size of the foot. I didn’t see the booted leg until I slowed the video down.
Slow down the video at 5:19 and check out the intruding eagle’s leg. It looks like it’s leg might be booted, or feathered all the way down. I’m waiting for our Golden Eagle experts to tell me what they think!
The Raptor Resource Project