First some backstory. I’m on the Book of Face — yes, that generally maligned site of dinner closeups and endless political memes. I tend to skim past those looking for news about my family (grandkid photos are a fave), local happenings (like which of my neighbors got airlifted last night) and nature observations (I have many local bird and wildlife groups in my feed, providing news like the rare Burrowing Owl last winter or the Black Bear that swam between islands last week). Well, all the miles and years of scrolling through inane FB postings were suddenly and forever made worth it by a single piece of information I stumbled across two weeks ago...a neighbor posted a photo of a local baby eagle. I sent a private message asking where the nest was and it turns out it is quite nearby! How cool is that!
The nest site is in a grove of trees in a field. It’s on private property about not far from the road where I’m standing. You can see the nest near the top of the tree on the right. It’s surprising to me eagles would nest directly above an active farm, and so close to a road. Granted, this is a back road, but there is regular traffic.
Eagles can be disturbed from their nesting by human activity. I’m being deliberately vague about its location, and not passing along any directions. Our county prohibits construction within 300 feet of nests as a way to protect them. That said, these eagles have chosen this spot and have been here for some years apparently. Research has found that what disturbs eagles the most, besides helicopters and other aerial intrusion, is pedestrian activity. Nests have been observed near residential subdivisions with no effect on “juvenile feeding behavior, adult presence, and prey delivery rate”, except when people were walking around. They become habituated to automobile traffic, but pedestrians are quieter, less evident. I’ve found this to be true about birds in general: when I’m in a car, or even on a bicycle, birds ignore me going by, but if I stop and get out/off, the heron, hawk, duck etc will fly or move away. Therefore, in my periodic observations of this eagle nest I’ve watched from the car, window rolled down. When an adult is up there standing sentinel, it turns to look for a moment but otherwise ignores me. Today the eaglet turned its head around to see us, and then turned back again, gazing far into the distance.
About half the times I’ve come by the eaglet is alone, as it was today. Evidently the parents are confident it will not get picked off by any predators anymore.
Even though eagles are common birds in the Salish Sea area — I usually see one or more every day, and my county has 89 active nests at last count — this is the first occupied eagle’s nest I’ve ever seen in real life. The biggest problem is that nests are generally near the seashore and that’s almost always private property. According to Washington Dept of Fish and Wildlife, 97% of the nests (Stinson et al. 2001) in our state are within half a mile of water (ocean, river or lake).
There’s just one eaglet in the nest which suggests food is not super abundant, since richer feeding grounds support more chicks. In Washington, "an average of 35% of active nests produced no young, 1 young fledged at 35% of nests, 2 young at 29% and 3 young at 1% of nests" (Stinson et al. 2001). What are the eagle parents feeding their youngster? One clue I’ve seen: I saw the eaglet leaning forward with its beak open, but not calling out. Might it have been coughing up a pellet? Pellets are:
masses of material from prey that cannot be digested, such as fur, feathers, and occasionally bone, that then travel backwards from the gizzard up to the mouth and are cast (like vomited) out the mouth. Depending on what they have eaten, pellets are formed after the meal, overnight, and are usually cast out the next morning. Most fish are digested completely. Eagles have very strong stomach acids, and can digest bone quite well, - www.learner.org/...
Since fish are fully digested they wouldn’t form a pellet. It may surprise you to learn that these “fish eagles” don’t actually eat much fish in my area, even though they are surrounded by the Salish Sea and this nest is not far from the water. According to numerous studies in western Washington, eagles eat more birds (like ducks and gulls) than fish. A 1998 study (Stinson et al. 2001) of remains under 67 Puget Sound and San Juan Islands nests found that their food was 67% birds, 19% fish, 7% invertebrates, 6% mammals. And in the San Juans, feral European rabbits are a major prey source. A significant proportion of eagle diet here is also carrion, especially road kill. In contrast, eagles nesting by rivers and lakes eat consideraly more fish than birds.
So, how far along is this eaglet, and how much longer will I have to see nest activity? According to the research, in western Washington, usually nests are refurbished in winter and egg-laying begins at the end of February. By the end of March most eagles are incubating, with eaglets then hatching by late April. They are nestlings for three months, fledging in early to mid-July. Most likely, it will still be another month until this one fledges.
Most of the time it is lying down. Sometimes it walks around, looking over the side. Once I saw it “wingersizing” and performing a poop shoot. It appears to be fully feathered.
I’ve never seen both parents at the nest; that phase seems to be over. Or perhaps it’s normal here for at least one to be out hunting. The Decorah nest cam sometimes shows both parents in the vicinity but they have a fish hatchery right next door, easy pickings (they usually raise three eaglets every year). Food’s not so easy to come by here.
A few days ago a parent was perched in the sentinel tree, the tallest in the grove, and flew down to a branch near the nest. The eaglet immediately began begging, an insistent whining.
The parent had no food for it of course, so the begging continued. You might be able to see it, head just above the edge of the nest, on the right. Both await arrival of the other parent, hoping for rabbit, or possibly some deer carcass, or maybe even a gull.
For me, this eagle nesting activity has been exciting and fascinating, even though I see young and adult eagles frequently. I see them flying, perching and watching, chasing and being chased, soaring in updrafts, and hear their piercing calls from far away or right overhead, a sound that stops me in my tracks every time. But this is the first time I’ve known what goes on when they’re nesting. As much as I like nest cams for all the closeup activity, there’s something different about seeing it directly, even these few tantalizing glimpses across the field. I’ll keep watching until fledge time. And if I’m lucky, maybe see them nesting again next year.