Decorah North Bald Eagle Cam

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Welcome to the Decorah North Eagles! We hope you enjoy watching and learning with us! Click the livestream to watch and scroll down the page to learn more about the eagles and their surroundings. For branch ID, follow this link. For pasture perches, follow this link!

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About the Decorah North Eagles

About the Eagles

The Decorah North eagles are nesting on private property north of Decorah, Iowa. Their nest is located in a white oak tree in a scrap of forest bordering a valley. A stream is located across a field where cattle are pastured. In general, the eagles begin courtship in October, productive mating in late January or early February, and egg-laying in mid to late February. Hatching usually begins in late March to early April, and the eaglets fledge in mid-to-late June. While young usually disperse between August and October, the adults remain on territory year round.

The eagles eat live and dead fish, squirrels, other birds, rabbit, muskrat, deer, possum and anything else they can catch or find. To learn more about bald eagles in general, please follow this link to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website.

Adults
Decorah North Bald Eagles: DNF and Mr. North

Decorah North Bald Eagles: DNF and Mr. North

The male is known as Mr. North.  The female is the Decorah North Female, or DNF, who replaced Mrs. North in the summer of 2018. We don’t know exactly how or when it happened. You can read more about it here: https://www.raptorresource.org/2019/01/20/north-nest-announcement/

Nests

The first nest at the North site was built in a pine tree. The branches collapsed after the second nesting season and the eagles moved to a dead elm tree. They nested there for just one year before moving to their current location in late 2013. In August of 2018, their nest collapsed and slid or fell out of the nest tree during an extremely heavy storm. None of the tree branches were broken or damaged, so we decided to build a starter nest in the same spot. 2020 will mark their seventh season and fourth nest on this territory.

  • 2018: A female eagle (DNF, or Decorah North Female) replaces Mrs. North over the summer. The nest falls out of the tree following a storm in late August. Kike Arnal and Amy Ries build a starter nest in mid-September. Mr. North and DNF adopt it in October.
  • 2015: RRP adds cameras to the North Nest in September.
  • 2013: The tree falls. The eagles begin a new nest in a white oak tree.
  • 2011: The branches holding the nest collapse. The eagles build a new nest in a dead elm tree.
  • 2009: A pair of eagles establishes the Decorah North territory, building a nest in a white pine tree.

The North nest is 56 feet off the ground.

  • In 2021, the nest was 8.25 feet at its longest point and 6.25 feet at its widest point. Measured outermost stick to outermost stick, the nest measured 12 feet across. We can’t really get a height on it, since we can’t get anywhere near the bottom and the nest slopes downward from the top. Our best guess is six feet high at its tallest measure.
  • In 2019, the nest was seven feet long at its longest point, four feet wide at its widest point, was about 3.5 feet high, and had a perimeter of roughly 18 feet.
Quick facts
Common name: Bald Eagle
Scientific name: Haliaeetus leucocephalus
Length: 2.3–3.1 feet | 71–96 cm
Wingspan: 5.9 – 7.5 feet | 1.7-2.2 meters
Weight: 6.5 – 13.8 pounds | 3–6.3 kilograms
Lifespan: Up to 40 years in the wild

Bald Eagle Vocalization

Learn More About Bald Eagles

March 27, 2024: An Eagletude fit for royalty! DN17 and DN18 turned three and two days old today.

Eaglet Growth and Development: Week One

We’re writing a series of blogs about the first few weeks of an eaglet’s life. An eaglet spends roughly 75 to 80 days in the nest. For about the first half, it grows and gains weight. For about the second half, it grows flight feathers and starts developing the skills it will need post-fledge. We will focus on week one in this blog. What can we expect in the first week following hatch? Like humans, a growing eaglet has developmental

March 25, 2024: DN17 and 18 eat.

Bald eagle tongues and beaks!

We know that bird beaks are specialized for feeding and daily tasks. Birds of prey have strong, curved beaks with sharp edges to help them tear meat. Falcons specialize even further, adding a tomial tooth to help them kill prey. Dabbling ducks have tiny, comb-like structures on their beaks to strain small animals, insects, and plants from water and mud, while piscivorous ducks have saw-like structures to help them hold on to struggling fish. But what about bird tongues or,

Development of an avian embryo

Peek inside a bald eagle egg: 24 days!

As of this writing, there are two eagle eggs at Decorah North. The youngest is just over 22 days old and the oldest is just over 25 days old. We anticipate that the oldest egg will hatch on or around the morning of March 23. . What do embryonic eagles look they look like as they develop and grow inside their eggs? Dr. Peter Sharpe from the Institute for Wildlife Studies developed a table of bald eagle embryonic development based

March 30, 2018: Mrs. North's brood patch

What is a brood patch?

Daylight length, or photoperiod, strongly influences hormone production in birds. In the northern hemisphere, our story begins shortly after the winter solstice in December. As daylight length increases, a cascade of hormones causes birds’ gonads to swell in preparation for reproduction, egg-laying, and incubation. In this blog, we’ll discuss the role the brood patch plays in incubation and determining clutch size. How do bald eagles keep their eggs warm in subzero temperatures? They apply heat via a special area of

Chicken embryos roughly 25% of the way to hatch

Peek inside a bald eagle egg: 11 days!

What do embryonic eagles look they look like as they develop and grow inside their eggs? Dr. Peter Sharpe from the Institute for Wildlife Studies developed a table of bald eagle embryonic development based on work done by Hamburger and Hamilton (1951). While not all bald eagle eggs hatch in 35 days, the stages of development look something like this… What happens between the third and the 11th day? When we last touched on the topic, our embryonic eagle had

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News

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March 27, 2024: An Eagletude fit for royalty! DN17 and DN18 turned three and two days old today.

Eaglet Growth and Development: Week One

We’re writing a series of blogs about the first few weeks of an eaglet’s life. An eaglet spends roughly 75 to 80 days in the nest. For about the first half, it grows and gains weight. For about the second half, it grows flight feathers and starts developing the skills it will need post-fledge. We will focus on week one in this blog. What can we expect in the first week following hatch? Like humans, a growing eaglet has developmental

March 26, 2024: Baby's first fish eyeball? This was a large bite for DN17. It took several tries for the eaglet to gulp it all down!

March 26, 2024: NestFlix, News, and Cute Overload from Decorah North and Decorah!

Did the eaglets get enough to eat today? It’s an evergreen question, especially when you see the little bobbleheads shivering in the snow, tumbling over, and wrestling one another instead of eating. Fortunately, Mr. North and DNF are perched at the peak of provisioning! They fed the terrific two thirteen times today, with twelve feedings going to DNF and one going to Mr. North. Wrestlemania or not, the eaglets ate well, with eleven feedings for DN17 and eight for DN18.

March 25, 2024: Bald Eagle DNF, Eaglets DN18 and DN17

March 25, 2024: The eaglet has landed!

The eaglet has landed! DN18 hatched at 3:14 AM on Monday, March 25. It’s a good thing DNF got plenty of sleep last night, since these eaglets look like a real handful! We don’t know exactly when DN17 hatched, since it was dry by the time we caught our first glimpse at 6:31 AM yesterday. But I’d guess that the the two eaglets are roughly one day apart. No related posts.

March 25, 2024: DN17 and 18 eat.

Bald eagle tongues and beaks!

We know that bird beaks are specialized for feeding and daily tasks. Birds of prey have strong, curved beaks with sharp edges to help them tear meat. Falcons specialize even further, adding a tomial tooth to help them kill prey. Dabbling ducks have tiny, comb-like structures on their beaks to strain small animals, insects, and plants from water and mud, while piscivorous ducks have saw-like structures to help them hold on to struggling fish. But what about bird tongues or,

March 24, 2024: DN17 eats its first meal!

March 24, 2024: Welcome DN17!

Congratulations to DNF and Mr. North on the arrival of DN17, the 17th eaglet to hatch at the North nest since we started counting. We don’t know exactly when DN17 hatched, but we got our first glimpse of the little eaglet at 6:31 AM CDT. Welcome to the world, DN17! Good morning, DN17! DN17 has arrived! Bobble-headed & pink footed! DN17’s first feeding… No related posts.

>> More News
Nest Records
Decorah North Eagles 2024 Nesting Record
Egg Laying
DNF laid egg #1 @ 2:12 PM on February 15.
DNF laid egg #2 @ 2:49 PM on February 18.
Hatching
DN17: We don’t have a hatch time for DN17, but we first saw it at 6:31 AM on March 24. DN17 is 4 days 4 hours old today.
DN18 hatched at 3:14 AM CDT on March 25. DN18 is 3 days 7 hours old today.

Fledging
Some time between early and mid-June.

Eaglets and Outcomes: Detailed Annual Information

Year Nest Parents Eaglets Known Outcomes
2023 DN4 Mr. North, DNF None DNF laid one egg but abandoned incubation two days after laying it. Mr. North incubated their lone egg, which most likely froze before it cracked. She did not reclutch.
2022 DN4 Mr. North, DNF DN15, DN16 DN15 and DN16 both fledged successfully! As of late July, the two were exploring the North Valley and improving their flight skills. We saw some black flies here, but there were not enough to drive the young from the nest.
2021 DN4 Mr. North, DNF DN13, DN14 DN13 and DN14 both fledged successfully! As of early July, 2021, the two were exploring the North Valley and improving their flight skills. Black flies were not an issue at this nest in 2021.
2020 DN4 Mr. North, DNF DN11, DN12 DN11 died at 5:56 AM on April 10. It appeared to have an obstruction in its throat that it could not clear. DN12 fledged successfully.
2019 DN4 Mr. North, DNF DN9, DN10 DNF laid two eggs beginning on February 21st. Both hatched beginning on March31, but DN10 died shortly after hatch. DN9 abandoned the nest early following an intense blackfly swarm. David Kester from the Raptor Resource Project rescued him. He was cared for by SOAR and released in the fall of 2019.
2018 DN3 Mr. North, Mrs. North DN7, DN8 Mrs. North laid one egg on 2/25/18. That egg broke in the wee hours of March 16. She reclutched on 4/12, laying two eggs. Both eggs hatched, but the eaglets succumbed to heat and blackfly bites on May 25.
2017 DN3 Mr. North, Mrs. North DN4, DN5, DN6 DN6 died of hypothermia shortly after hatch. DN4 and DN5 survived and fledged.
2016 DN3 Mr. North, Mrs. North DN1, DN2, DN3 3 eggs hatched. DN3 died of cold and
malnourishment on May 11. Sibling
aggression was a significant factor. DN2
was killed by contaminated prey on
May 25th. DN1 survived to fledge.

We often get questions about where the eaglets go after they disperse. We have never tracked eaglets from this nest, but we have tracked eaglets from the Decorah nest. For more information, visit our eagle maps.

Decorah North Eagles Video Library

Decorah North Eagles Video Library

Click the hamburger icon on the top right of the video below to view a full list of videos from our most recent playlist, or visit our youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/RaptorResourceProject.