If anyone needs me, I’ll be over here with my sticks! I miss a few days of nestorations and it looks like the Decorah North and Fort St. Vrain Bald Eagles have redone the place! The eagles piled yet another layer of sticks on and are filling both nests with soft materials, including corn stalks, husks, and grass at the North Nest, and grass at Fort St. Vrain. I can’t pick a favorite video this time: we’ve got DNF in snow, a great look at North Nestorations, and both Fort St. Vrain Eagles flubbing their landings. C’mon, you guys – that nest is huge!
Please mark your calendars for Giving Tuesday, on December 3rd. We’ll be marking the day with chats and fundraisers. We accept donations every day of the year, but special fundraisers like this help us raise the money we need for cameras, computers, banding, transmitters, and other research. We’ll see you there!
As always, thanks to our awesome camera operators and video makers for their observations and footage, and to all of you for watching, sharing, learning, and especially for caring. We hope you like these videos as much as we do!
Decorah North Eagles
November 24, 2024: DNF dresses Mr. North in her favorite stick! More seriously, the two brought in an incredible 32 sticks into the nest between sunrise on Friday morning and sunset on Sunday night, along with a whole bouquet of cornhusk roses, stalks, and grass!
November 25, 2024: DNF stopping by the nest on a snowy morning – https://youtu.be/MONI7UipIRQ?si=9A4KnOT3_tGwPak6. Lovely close-ups of DNF and the nest in softly falling snow. I especially enjoy seeing the cornstalks and corn husk roses. Cornstalks are a coveted nest material everywhere that eagles nest near corn fields: a veritable Nest Depot of stalks, husks, and stubble for eagles to collect and repurpose for nesting materials. We’ll see them snap, shred, and use many more to carpet the floor of their nest!
November 25, 2024: DNF in softly falling snow.
November 24, 2024: A Nest Improvement weekend for the Decorah North Eagles! https://youtu.be/MFfCk1At1so?si=eDB-DNmIy7-uEeQX. If you need me, I’ll be over here with my sticks! Mr. North and DNF were busy with nestorations this weekend. It’s the perfect time for Nest Improvement: the leaves have largely fallen and sightlines and flyways are about as clear as they’ll ever be, but the deep cold and snow haven’t started yet. I especially enjoyed DNF’s stick hand-off to Mr. North, the Beakerson’s moments, the stick tango, and DNF briefly dressing up Mr. North in her favorite – for now! – stick. The two brought an incredible 32 stick into the nest between sunrise on Friday morning and sunset on Friday night, along with a whole bouquet of cornhusk roses, stalks, and grass!
Is this heaven? No, it’s Iowa! Listen for cows in the background…
Xcel Energy Fort St. Vrain Eagles
November 22, 2024: Pa Overboard-Stick Wars-Beakering – https://youtu.be/nSvUBaGy-1E?si=Uq8WVSkaHQ3oYPIJ. Pa arrives at the nest with a stick. Ma comes barreling with her own and knocks Pa right over the side of the nest at 1:25! Pa comes back to the nest with a stick at 2:05 and the two continue their nestorations. We get a little beakering after Ma steps in to ‘help’ Pa at 2:41 – Pa doesn’t want help! – and a wing-wrestling match beginning at 3:03 – but Ma knows where the stick should go! This video has a top and side view and it is very cool to see both perspectives.
November 22, 2024: Nestorations and beakering at Fort St. Vrain! Note how different this nest looks: corn isn’t commonly grown in this part of Colorado and almost all the trees are cottonwood in this section of the Platte.
Ma and Pa FSV briefly stop their nestorations and beakering at 3:46 to pay attention to something we can’t see. Listen for the interesting vocals from Ma, which don’t sound anything like an adult Bald Eagle’s normal vocalizations. This is a ‘bark’ call. It is most often given by eagles near nests and might be indicative of alarm. They’ve certainly dealt with a lot of intruders this fall: https://youtu.be/5jKzgsL4kzY?si=mdpuFwuhd7Ofa-Mg
The Raptor Resource Project