Tag Archives: Unusual

What’s Going on With The Trempealeau Eagles? Cooperative and Not-So-Cooperative Breeding in Bald Eagles

April 20, 2025: Mr. T's other nest and mate

Remember January and February of 2025? Bald Eagle Mr. T was attentive, his mate Mrs. T laid three eggs, and both eagles actively tended their nest. But after March 19, he began spending less time there. He disappeared entirely between March 27 and April 5, and when he returned, his visits were brief and infrequent. Mrs. T was left to manage the nest mostly on her own – although Mr. T brought in a few fish, he took more than

What The Nest? Elaine, Newman, and Ardy

Elaine accepting a food gift from Ardy at US Bank.

This year’s season of ‘The Falcon Bachelor’ flipped the script! As usual, Newman passed out roses – by which we mean food gifts – to a succession of female falcons. We spotted Julie 90/Z (a regular visitor), Kandiyohi H/34, Hope E/60, and Newman’s mate from last year, Elaine U/09! Elaine celebrated her second birthday and first year as an adult this spring, and we were excited to see a little less drama than we saw last year. Or so we

A Subadult Intruder at the North Nest

March 7, 2025: A subadult intruder in the North Nest

We witnessed an intense 18 minutes at the North Nest last night when a subadult eagle dropped in for a dusk-time snack. DNF was not pleased, but rather than risk a struggle that could endanger her eggs, she mantled over them and vocalized sharply, making it clear that the intruder was unwelcome. At first the subadult focused on nestovers, paying little attention to DNF. But when it moved toward her – roughly two minutes into this video or about 16

FOUR eggs for Ma and Pa FSV!

March 4, 2025: Four eggs for Ma FSV

We saw a once-in-a-nest event at Xcel Energy Fort St. Vrain last night! Ma FSV has been a three-egg layer for most of her laying career, and we had no reason to think this year would be any different until she laid egg #4 at 6:32 MT last night. Congratulations, Ma and Pa – we’re so egg-cited for you! Watch live here: https://www.raptorresource.org/birdcams/xcel-energy-cams/. How common are four-egg nests? Will all the eggs hatch? How likely are any hatchlings to survive?

April 19: Hatch watch at N2B, speckled goose visiting N1!

April 19, 2024: A leucistic Canada goose at N1

The specked goose we’ve been seeing at N1 has an unusual and beautiful pattern of feathers on her head. Her striking looks are the result of leucism, a partial loss of pigmentation that causes white coloration, white patches, spots, or splotches on skin or fur. She hasn’t yet laid an egg, but our camera operators are on the lookout for hatch at N2B. Spring is a busy time for birds and everyone who watches them! 🐣🐥🦅🪿 We’ve had some questions

What’s Up With the Geese? Canada Geese, Reproduction, and Conspecific Brood Parasitism

April 1, 2024: the resident geese struggle with the intruder.

On Saturday April 1, goose watchers at N2B saw a female goose fly into the nest. After a lot of biting, pushing, and tussling, she laid an egg despite MG and PG’s best attempts to repel her. One of the local eggs dropped out of the nest, although MG and PG ended up incorporating the intruder’s egg into their own clutch. At one point, it was thought that Canada geese were strictly monogamous. Close observation has yielded a more nuanced

Bald Eagles: A Fission-Fusion Species?

March 5, 2020: We saw our first large multi-age group of eagles today! They follow the melt north, gorging on gizzard shad and other fish they find in the ice.

While some websites state that Harris Hawks are the only raptors that hunt communally, social hunting – sometimes in mated pairs, and sometimes including unpaired birds, depending on the species – has also been documented in Bald Eagles, Golden Eagles, Striated Caracaras, Red-tailed Hawks, Ferruginous Hawks, Red-shouldered Hawks, Peregrine Falcons, Lanner Falcons, Aplomado Falcons, Philippine Eagles, and Verreaux’s Eagles. Some of these species are loners, but others – including bald eagles – appear to be a fission-fusion species: i.e., they

DH2 and the Red-Winged Blackbird

DH2 and the red-winged blackbird

We think we saw DH2 soaring over the hatchery on Saturday, July 22nd, although the eaglet was missing its red-winged blackbird escort, so we can’t be entirely certain. Male red-winged blackbirds are very territorial and we often see them harass eagles, including Mom, Dad, DM2, HD, and HM and many of the 40 eaglets produced on the hatchery territory. But this year’s level of attention has been unique! We don’t think this video shows interspecific allopreening, which has only been

Bald Eagle D36 has died

June 30, 2020: D36 and the eagle team

We are beyond sorry to announce that bald eagle D36 has died. Bald eagles die and this isn’t the first time we’ve had to announce it. But this feels especially tragic. For almost the first time since we started tracking eaglets from Decorah back in 2011, we won’t be following one. We started tracking them to answer one of the most common questions that followers asked: ‘Where do the Decorah Eagles go?’. They taught us a whole lot about their

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