January 17, 2025: The Week in Pictures!

Welcome to the week in photos! Today’s Friday photo album features some favorite captures from Decorah North, Trempealeau, and our Golden Eagle work, plus a throwback from the Flyway.

Thanks so much to our camera operators and videomakers for finding such special moments and to all of you for watching, sharing, learning, and especially for caring!

January 16, 2025: Mr. North and DNF
January 16, 2025: Mr. North and DNF

It was a rollercoaster week, weatherwise, at the Decorah North Nest! The week opened with what seemed like a polar plunge, but was really just winter in Iowa. After a few frigid days, a tropical heat wave rolled in, which meant we got to see a lot of Mr. North and DNF on January 16 and 17th. They worked on the nest, copulated, and coped with adult and subadult intruders, and DNF took a splish-splash eagle bath in the creek. Enjoy them now: temperatures are about to plunge once more, which means they’ll hunker down, reduce activity, and be harder for even our expert camera operators to spot! Eagles and Cold Weather >> https://www.raptorresource.org/2024/12/11/flashback-blog-how-do-eagles-stay-warm-in-cold-weather/.

January 12, 2025: A squirrel near the North Nest!
January 12, 2025: A squirrel near the North Nest!

January 12, 2025: A squirrel near Decorah North! Squirrels are mating now and females will give birth to their first litter in February or March.

anuary 9, 2025: Tandem stick work at Xcel Energy's Fort St. Vrain nest!
January 9, 2025: Tandem stick work at Xcel Energy’s Fort St. Vrain nest!

January 9, 2025: Tandem stick work at Xcel Energy’s Fort St. Vrain nest! Ma FSV laid her first on on February 15 in 2024. We’ve seen quite a bit of them this week, but Platteville is also headed for the deep freeze, so they might make themselves scare until things warm up.

Watch this nest live: https://www.raptorresource.org/birdcams/xcel-energy-cams/.

January 12, 2025: The Trempealeau Eagles at work on their nest.
January 12, 2025: The Trempealeau Eagles at work on their nest.

January 11, 2025: The Trempealeau eagles are also busy with nestorations! A computer issue this week caused some problems, but John and Amy fixed it today. We’re very excited to start a chat here in February! https://www.raptorresource.org/trempealeau-eagles/.

January 15, 2025: Pa chases an intruder.
January 15, 2025: Pa chases an intruder.

January 15, 2025: Pa was not happy about a young adult intruder at Fort St. Vrain! https://youtu.be/gHtM6MHskQE?si=FFcWagN8zCoVEODO. He tried to drive it away once at about 10:40 and succeeded at the end of the video.

The young adult appeared to be foraging for nestovers. Bald Eagles are often more tolerant of juveniles and subadults, although they still don’t welcome them into their nests. An adult – even a young or new adult like this one – poses a significant threat and Pa reacted accordingly.

January 17, 2025: Subadult intrudes on DNF's bath- up close and personal!
January 17, 2025: Subadult intrudes on DNF’s bath…up close and personal!

January 17, 2025: Subadult intrudes on DNF’s bath- up close and personal – https://youtu.be/e8z21hGBv0s?si=kIx3h2hY-pPqYbl1. This was a really interesting video! DNF is taking advantage of a relatively warm winter day to bathe in the creek. The creek is open year-round, but the temperature is well above 32F/0C today: a perfect time to remove dirt, dried blood, parasites, and everything else that ends up on an eagle’s feathers. A subadult joins her in the bath, but she doesn’t seen concerned in the least. The two dunk and splash until about 8:11, when they both fly out. Our camera operators’ notes say that another adult, but not Mr. North, showed out to drive it away.

January 16, 2025: Mr. North's Nare Bling!
January 16, 2025: Mr. North’s Nare Bling!

January 16, 2025: Mr. North! I suspect he’s blinged out with the remains of a pheasant dinner he brought DNF given the feathers stuck to his beak! https://youtu.be/zXjbLenlzxo?si=UBescjH3Pgm8-D2p.

January 16, 2025: DNF
January 16, 2025: DNF

January 16, 2025: Heart be still! DNF’s beautiful wild ferocity: https://youtu.be/fDaNHZyOP4g?si=cV6uQAts7Usr32Au.

January 17, 2025: Summer on the Flyway!
January 17, 2025: Summer on the Flyway!

January 17, 2025: Okay, this clearly isn’t the Flyway in January! We’re not sure why our Flyway camera isn’t working, but we’ve found an airboat and hope to get out there in the next couple of weeks to troubleshoot it. The island is a hard place to reach even in summer, and uncertain winter ice conditions make it even tougher. We hope to have it fixed soon…we miss those views!

Castle Rock Repairs!
Castle Rock Repairs!

January 17, 2025: Who was up on Castle Rock today? John and Amy troubleshot the eyrie cam and concluded that it was broken. We plan to fix it before mid-February. No, I am not looking forward to a day on rope in February! (LOL)

January 13, 2025: Anna and Golden Eagle
January 13, 2025: Anna and Golden Eagle

January 13, 2025: Our Golden Eagle tracking project continues! Abbey and Anna captured this eagle. We’ll post more about it next week.

January 13, 2025: Golden Eagle footpads and talons.
January 13, 2025: Golden Eagle footpads and talons.

Photo by John Howe. “A Golden Eagle’s footpad measures 5.1 to 5.7 inches long. It is tipped with four formidable talons that are about two inches long, giving it a greater reach than the human hand. Golden Eagles need feet that can grasp a wide variety of prey in the harsh environments they call home: researchers have witnessed them attacking and killing antelope, deer, sheep, seals, mountain goats, coyotes, badgers, bobcats, turkeys, geese, cranes, herons, hares, marmots, and ground squirrels. They kill with their feet: as Leslie Brown states “[A Golden Eagle’s] feet can accommodate themselves to the size and shape of the prey taken, a small animal being crushed in the grip of the overlapping talons; while a wide spread of the foot, enabling the bird to seize a large animal, also places the talon points in a position to pierce…”.

Golden Eagles often live in cold places and feathered or ‘booted’ feet – a trait shared by just two other diurnal raptor species – protect them against the cold and bites or scratches from their prey. Once a Golden Eagle has dinner in its grasp, it grips and crushes with its large, powerful feet, using its sharp, hooked beak to tear flesh from bone.”

January 16, 2025: Mr. North's talons and footpad
January 16, 2025: Mr. North’s talons and footpad

January 16, 2025: Compare Mr. North’s formidable feet with the GOEA’s above. His feet are big and his talons are long, but both are smaller than a Golden Eagle’s foot, perhaps reflecting their different natural histories. Bald Eagles can eat anything, but they are fish eagles who first and foremost prefer fish. Their ‘naked’ or non-booted legs move through the water easily and their feet are well-adapted to catching and holding slippery fish.