March 4, 2014 - Closer And Closer We Come…..

Oh, give me a home

Where the eagles all roam

and the nests are full of eggs.

Where never is heard

a discouraging word

and the chatters ask questions all day.

Home, home on the branch

Where parents and eaglets never blanch

And they'll kick your behind

If they happen to find 

you sitting to close to the nest.

Just a word to the wise percher!

(What can I say, this stuff just pops into my head!)

In case you didn’t see it on the Facebook page here’s a short update from BroadBand Corp:

Here is the plan.

On Wednesday, (March 5) it is supposed to be a tropical 27ish degrees so we hope to bring the new Minnesota Bound Batteries and everything back out to the site along with the remote camera power shut off and get installed. If all goes well, we should be able to have things on line by the end of the day tomorrow.

Hopefully, if all goes well tomorrow, I’ll be able to wake up on my hatchday Thursday and spend the day with Mom and Dad on the nest. Year before last Mom gave me the best present by laying Harmon’s egg on my hatchday. Maybe we’ll get lucky again this year. It will be fun to see them again and to see how much nestorating they have done.

We are right in the beginning of the yearly window for this pair to be laying their eggs. Hopefully they have not started yet but don’t be surprised if we see Mom sitting on an egg when the cam comes back up.

Let’s talk about eaglet names for a bit. In 2011 at this cam it wasn’t a problem as hardly anyone was watching and the subject never came up as far as I know. In 2012 the chatters in SS, lacking any guidance from above, named the two eaglets Harmon and Kirby. The names stuck and were used for the season. In fact, Harmon became the most famous eaglet on the planet for a bit. He had his 15 minutes of fame and a lot more. Songs were sung for him, he had TV segments made about him, Facebook pages were dedicated to him, etc. People still refer to this nest as “Harmon’s nest”. We all hope he is still out there somewhere squeeing up a storm as he eats and drumming on anything he can get his wings on.

Last year as you know the elder eaglet was named Harmony by BBC both to honor our original mod mypete and to keep some continuity with the previous year. The second eaglet was named Peace by the head mod at the time because it went so well with Harmony. We here, the mods and MN Bound, have been having a discussion about naming the eaglets this year.

As you probably know up until the middle of last season BBC had been taking the lead in all things eagle at this cam. That changed mid season last year when BBC turned over the day to day duties of supervising the mods and the cam to MN Bound. The people at MN Bound feel, as do the mods, that naming wild animals is not something that should be done. They are not pets and we are only guests in their home. Naming them can cause confusion with other nests and can add to the anguish that the chatters feel if something bad happens at the nest. 

So, with that said, we will be referring to the eaglets this year as M7, M8 and who knows possibly M9 if we are lucky enough to have 3 eggs this year. I know some of you will be disappointed with this but we think it is for the best and it will be the policy from here on out. But Talon, you say, other nests and organizations still name their eaglets. Yes they do, that is their choice. Some of them name them to try and up their donations. Some just do it on a whim. More power to them. Our choice here is to not name them. I hope you can understand and support us in that choice and enjoy the upcoming season with us as always.

See you on the nest!

TalonStrike

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Please visit http://www.raesidecartoon.com/coast-sunday.html for lots of good laughs! Thanks!

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post them below. Also, we'll be updating our official MN Bound LIVE Eagles Facebook Page regularly so you can follow along, like, or share with your friends.  We have several site moderators this year to help give optimal information to all that want to learn more about these magnificent birds.

Blog Update 28 February 2014: Where's The Cam??

Well, the cam is in the tree. 

I know we had been saying that we would like to be up and running last weekend. I can give you a one word answer for why that didn't happen.

Weather.

The solar power system has taken a beating this year from the brutally cold winter. The controller and inverter failed in December and as a result of that half of the batteries froze. The parts were replaced by BBC and the cam was up for a few days last week as they tested it in preparation for going online. However, on early Thursday morning last week the power system again went down and because of the Weather it took until Wednesday this week to get out to the site and retrieve the components so they could be tested back at BBC headquarters. Also, the batteries again froze because they were not under load and not being charged in the extreme cold. BBC has promised to keep us informed as to the status of the repairs and any news will be posted here and at the Facebook page. Mn Bound is working closely with BBC to support them in any way they can to get the cam up and running again. 

We are all keeping our talons crossed hoping the fix is not too complicated and that we will be up and running as soon as is humanly possible. Please keep yours crossed, too!

So, where does this leave us?

We are in pretty good shape actually. Mom has laid her eggs in the first 2 weeks of March for the last 2 years and we think that will be the case again this year. It may even be a little later because of the extreme cold and snowy conditions. The pair at Decorah laid their first egg a few days later this year than they normally do so we still have some time before the season truly gets under way. I know we are missing out on a lot of stick antics by Dad and nestorations by Mom but I will be happy if we get the cam up just in time to see Mom lay her first egg. So, please be patient with us as we root for BBC to get the problems cured as soon as possible. The cam will be back and we will have a lot of viewing to do once it does come up. Its a long season and if we do miss the egg lays it will just add to the mystery of when the hatches will be!

Thanks for your patience and keep the faith! The cam will be back!

TalonStrike

February 10, 2014 - A Little History Before We Start

Before the season starts I’d like to review the history of the MNB/BBC cam and how it came to be where it is. Some of this will be speculation as we can’t be sure of all the details.

In 2010 Broadband Corp placed a cam in a tree with an eagles nest that was several miles away from the present nest. That nest was taken over by a Great Horned Owl for its egg laying season and the eagles did not use it that year. Great Horned Owls do not build nests and resort to squatting on nests built by other large raptors. We saw that happen at the Fox River nest last year (or was it the year before?).

The next year, 2011, the cam was moved to the present location in the mighty cottonwood tree. It was placed on the branch below what is now the cam mount and didn’t have a very good view of the nest. Very few people watched the cam that year but it is known that 2 eaglets hatched and fledged from the nest that year.

In 2012 (Harmon’s year) the cam was moved to the trunk of the tree directly above the nest. It was a fixed cam that only had a digital zoom and pan capability however it gave us a much better view of the nest. That was a really good thing as it allowed us to see all of the drama that happened to Kirby and Harmon. The year started with very few viewers but as we all know that changed when Kirby had his unfortunate mishap and Harmon got stuck in the nest. Viewership went through the roof and the nest became very popular. Harmon was rescued, spent a weekend at the spa, and was placed back in the nest to await Mom and Dad’s return. They did return and Harmon entertained us with his antics until he fledged.

In 2013 BBC outdid themselves with an all new mount that moved the cam to a much better position off the trunk and they mounted a remote controllable Pan, Tilt, and Zoom High Definition cam that gave us spectacular views of the nest and surrounding areas. Great close-ups and wonderful videos resulted during the 2013 season. We had our best views ever of laying, pipping, hatching and the eaglets as they grew to fledge.

Towards the end of the season the cam was damaged by, we think, one of the eaglets landing on it and that limited the PTZ capabilities. We limped through the end of the season and saw Peace and Harmony fledge and start their journey to becoming the apex predators they were hatched to be.

For 2014 the cam which was damaged in 2013 has been replaced with a new version of the cam we had last year. The mount has been modified to better mount the cam and to keep it safer for and from the eaglets. The infrared light which blew out last year has been replaced so we will be able to view at night this year. The power system has had some problems also and those are in the process of being fixed. Hopefully all will be in order by the weekend so we can be live but it is weather dependent now as it has been too cold to work on the installation. I will be happy if we get the cam up just in time to see Mom lay the first egg of the season.

Speaking of Mom and Dad (was I?) one of the most popular questions we get is “how old are they?”. We will never know for sure but some pictures were found of the 2011 season last year. It was determined from those that this pair has been on the nest all of the years that a cam has been in this tree. 

There was speculation in 2012 that became “common knowledge” that Dad was new at the start of the 2012 season. Sorry to say that is not true. The pictures show that it was the same male in 2011 as in 2012. 

So how old ARE they?? Local knowledge says the nest had been there for ~7 years prior to the cam being placed in the tree in 2011. Is this the same pair that originally built the nest?? We will never know. We have been guessing their ages to be 8 & 9 years old(about the minimum they could be) but given that we do not know when they matured or if they built this nest they could be as much as 15-16 years old. It really doesn’t matter how old they are as they are mature eagles in the prime of life that are healthy and producing new eaglets every year for us to watch and cheer on to fledging.

Update March 2nd: It was confirmed with BBC today that the original nest(the owl takeover nest) was at least 6 miles as the eagle soars away from the present nest. Given the territoriality of eagles and the fact that the present nest has been here for ~ 10 years now it is unlikely that the pair of eagles we have been watching for the last 2+ years are the same ones that had their nest stolen by the owl.

Thats as much as I know of the history of the MN Bound Eagle Nest. If anyone has verifiable information I can add to this or that corrects any of this info I would be glad to hear it. Please leave it in the comments section and I will get back to you about it as soon as I can. Thanks!

Well, time to wrap this up and I will see you on the nest!

TalonStrike

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post them below. Also, we'll be updating our official MN Bound LIVE Eagles Facebook Page regularly so you can follow along, like, or share with your friends.  We have several site moderators this year to help give optimal information to all that want to learn more about these magnificent birds.

February 1, 2014 - First Blog of the 2014 Season

How many of you have been waiting patiently for this blog??

Raise your hands, I can hear you breathing out there! Please tell your neighbors and friends we are back and better than ever.

The 2014 season at the MN Bound Eaglecam is about to start and let me be the first to welcome all of our old friends and the new ones that will be joining us! We here at the cam, all the mods, Broadband Corp and MN Bound hope we will have another very successful season and that you will all be here to see every moment of it with us.

The cam is offline right now due to some power problems. The controller that handles all the power from the solar arrays decided to give up the ghost. This was discovered after BBC had shutdown the cam due to low batteries during the first large snowstorm of the year in December. New parts were ordered and they arrived a few days ago. BBC went to the nest site and retrieved the old components and will be replacing them on their “motherboard” this week. Hopefully they will be installed back at the nest site soon after. Also one half of the batteries froze after the controller fried so those will need replacement, too. I do not know if BBC has received the batteries yet. If not I hope they will get them soon.

At the moment we are hoping to be up and running in mid-February as we have been saying in the Saturday chats. But if it takes a little longer to fix the power problems we have some wiggle room in that Mom usually doesn’t lay until the first two weeks of March. It would be nice to see some nestorations but I will be glad to have the cam back up to just catch Mom laying the 1st egg of the season. 

Okay, now that that’s out of the way I’d like to say some things about a few other things. 

First, I’d like to welcome three new (well, mostly new) moderators to the MN Bound Eaglecam. They are Pfernf1, Bdogmm5858, and jreagle.

Welcome! 

As you may recognize jreagle is rejoining us after helping mod during the first half of the season last year. Pfern is a mod at several other cams and is a great one to have with us. Bdog is a chatter at several nests and we dragged him (and his cheetos) kicking and screaming into the mod corps just so we would never run out of snacks. He has been honing his skills on the Saturday chats and seems to fit in very well on The Best Mod Team On The Net!™ Welcome again to all!

Second, a point of personal privilege. Myself and the rest of the moderators here at MN Bound are just chatters like everyone else. We are not kings, queens, rulers, lords or gods. We are a group of people just like you that started out watching cams and chatting in the SS and IRC and learned a lot along the way and have now been asked to help you have a good experience while watching our and other cams. We have been empowered to keep order in the chats and to that end we can censor, kick and ban a chatter if needs be. 

If you chat at any of the other nests you will know that they have a laundry list of rules. We only have one rule here, “Be Nice”. 

What does that mean? 

It means we expect you to adhere to the basic rules of the net. No all caps posts, no trolling, no strings of letters or symbols in posts…the general things that are expected in chats and forums across the net. 

Our mods have been asked to use their judgement in deciding whats “Nice”. We aren’t always right or fair but we will err on the side of caution every time. There have been examples at other cams of SS and chat getting out of hand. We will not let that happen here. We want all of our chatters and perchers to have a great time while they are on the nest.

Third, while I am at it, if you do have a comment, complaint, suggestion or rant about something that happened on the nest please DO NOT call Broadband Corp or MN Bound about it.  They were actually considering closing the cams down permanently due to the volume of calls they were receiving because it was interfering with conducting their regular business. This cam is provided by them as a service, it earns them nothing but the goodwill of their viewers, and if it becomes a burden to them they will shut it down. So, please, no calls!

If you have something to say please post it in the comments here and we will respond to it as quick as we can. I will ask MN Bound if they can set up a “Suggestion Box” where you can post anything you think they need to know. Or you can send a private message on The MN Bound LIVE Eagles Facebook Page.

Well this has gotten long so I will save a few more things to say until the next time. I hope you are all looking forward to another great season on the nest like we are. Pull up a branch and experience it with us!!

TalonStrike

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post them below .  Also, we'll be updating our official MN Bound LIVE Eagles Facebook Page regularly so you can follow along, like, or share with your friends.  We have several site moderators to help give optimal information to all that want to learn more about these magnificent birds.

Blog Update November 19, 2013 - A Bucket Ride To The Nest!

Choke, choke! Cough, cough! Pardon me while I blow the dust off and post a new blog!

I was going to write a blog on the camera update but Mark did such a good job I’ll just steal his!! (All good writers steal!! LOL)

From Mark:

Hi everyone, I thought I would take a minute to recap the camera swap. As you see in the video, Anthony and I both went up to the nest as we had not as much daylight as we were hoping for so it always goes a little faster with two people. There was a part of the camera bracket that was higher than the camera so we cut that off just to give more clearance around the nest for them to come and go. The old IR unit actually had a hole blown / melted in the side of it so it was obviously an electrical issue. The new one that was installed was not powered up yet because we ran out of time but we hope to accomplish that this coming week.

Our plan was to completely replace the mount with a new one that is less intrusive but again time posed an issue so we decided to snug up the old bracket and make things work until next year when hopefully we can get out there in September. 

With the help of mnbutterfly and her husband who you see in the video we were able to bring up the replacement camera and lower the old one. They were a great help!

The new camera is the exact same model as the old. We will take apart the old camera and repair what ever damage there is to it and then it will become our spare or be used at the County fair and State fair to follow the County’s 4-h kids. 

We placed tape over the mic hole in an attempt to lower the wind noise. We will have to see how that works.

All in all it was great weather for this time of year, Anthony commented that this would be the first time we worked on the camera in the nest that it wasn't below 10 degrees. 

I think we were out there for about 5 hours, pretty quick and clean. 

Before I leave this update we want to thank Talon and all of the Moderators as well as everyone at Minnesota Bound for providing such a great structure to the cam and of course a big thanks to the viewers who watch our friends journey every year. So as of today, Sunday November the 17th,...All's Good In The Cottonwood!

Your friends at Broadband, Anthony and Mark

Thank you, Mark and Anthony, for all you do to bring us these great pictures and sounds from the Cottonwood! We all look forward to another great season of watching Mom and Dad bring some more marvelous eaglets into our world.

There are a lot of pics and Razzle’s great videos so I may just have to do a couple more blogs to fit them all in.

See you at the Saturday chats with the new cam to watch!!

TalonStrike

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post them below or in the chat room.  Also, we'll be updating our official MN Bound LIVE Eagles Facebook Page regularly so you can follow along, like, or share with your friends.  We have several site moderators this year to help give optimal information to all that want to learn more about these magnificent birds.

MNBound Eagles Switching the Cam ~ Installation Day 11-15-13

They weren't kidding! That is a loooong way up!

Fly-in view from the pond side of the nest

Getting ready.

Heading up!

The babbling brook you can hear on quiet nights at the cam.

A different perspective on the nest!

Mark being acrobatic up at the cam

Sending the new cam up to be installed

Well thats enough for this blog. I will be posting up more pics and the vids Razzle has made during the Saturday chats over the last month and a half in the next few days! 

See you then!

TalonStrike