Nest Update March 9, 2014 - Melting Snow, Ice Crashes, and Deer, Oh, My…

March 10, 2014

The first Sunday of the season was a fitting one on the nest. It mostly consisted of Dad having the duty on the egg while Mom stretched her wings and talons in preparation for what we hope is a second egg tomorrow. There were a few highlights though like a good stick bonk on Mom by Dad as he returned from Stick Depot, several choir practices where Mom and Dad warned away intruders, some of the resident deer wandering by at the usual time and several very loud crashes of ice as the day warmed up into the forties and the river started to break out of its icy winter shell. We even spotted some future meals for the eaglets swimming in the open water of the river. The mallards looked very happy to have a place to exercise their webbed feet on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Ooops, wrong nest!!

Actually, that was an osprey nest we spotted on the way to Grand Teton National Park several years ago. Great use for a power pole don’t you think??

On to todays doin’s!

Birdbrain56 put together a nice compilation of today’s happenings on the nest! Thanks BB!

MNBound Eagles ~ Dad Has Nest Duty ~ 03/09/14

Hmmmmm... I hope those mallards stick around for the next couple of months!

Hey take those noisy things somewhere else! I have an egg trying to nap here!

Jeez, I hope those eagles aren't yelling at us!

I wonder if the viewers like me better with or without the grass??

♩♫♩Hey, hey you, you get offa my tree...♬♪♬

I hope your Sunday was as relaxing as the one the eagles had. We look forward to tomorrow and the laying of our next egg!(we hope).

I wish you all a fine week and hope that things start warming up for everyone!

See you on the nest tomorrow!

TalonStrike

Are you SURE we are having another egg tomorrow??

I got my hoodie on! Can we go see the egg now??

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post them below and please if you do comment put the chat name you use in the comment so we can know who you are. Thanks! 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.

Nest Update March 8, 2014 - Saturday in the Cottonwood!

March 9, 2014

What a lovely first Saturday in the cottonwood! The temps warmed up some more, ice and snow were melting, Mom and Dad had a relaxing day after the last couple of hectic days and we look forward to sunshine and even warmer temps tomorrow.

Mom started the day early by calling for Dad before sunrise. She then went back to sleep while he took his time getting there. After a seat exchange Mom headed of to the coffee shop to get a bracer to start the day.. When she returned Dad was up to his old tricks of trying to stay in the warm place on the egg but with a few nudges she persuaded him to leave and took up where she left off.

MN Bound Eagles 3-8-14 Highlights 6-9am ~ Crib Rails ~ Grass ~ Reluctant Nest Exchange

Dad brought home some more furnishings during the morning and again took over incubation duties around noon as Mom went to have a quick lunch with the girls from the spa. The egg was left to fend for itself for a bit in the afternoon as Mom and Dad made a security sweep of the area. The egg enjoyed this as it got to soak up the first rays of its young life and had some space to itself. When the parents returned they held choir practice for the first time this season as an unseen intruder tested the borders of the realm. Dad also had a free feather inspection by the cam gnomes of BBC. All was looking good!

MNBound Eagles ~ Dad Up Close & Personal ~ 03-08-14

MN Bound Eagles 3-8-14 Highlights 9am - 2pm ~ Nesting Changes & Great Close Ups

Late afternoon Dad delivered an eat-in meal of aquatic avian. Mom noshed her fill and settled back down on her egg. Dad came back and In the process of trying to consume the rest of the duck annoyed Mom enough that she went off to the back branch to feak her beak in peace. She then returned and helped Dad polish off the duck. Dad went for a little feaking while Mom got back to incubating.

MNBound Eagles ~ Dad Eats, Mom Feaks ~ 03/08/14

Some does went strolling through the woods across the river and the cam gnomes practiced their panning skills trying to catch up to them.

MNBound Eagles ~ Oh Deer ~ 03/08/14

Mom settled in for the long winter’s evening while Dad went across to to the fledge perch for sentry duty. The first Saturday of our MNB Eaglecam season was complete.

A tip of the talons to dragonlainey and birdbrain56 for the vids today! And as always a great big thank you to BBC for the cam and streaming!

See you on the nest tomorrow!

TalonStrike

You're cold?? You are the one who wanted a little space!

Can we go see the new eagle egg, Grampa??

PS: Please don't forget to hit the Like button if you enjoyed the blog!➷

Nest Update March 7, 2014 - Well, That Was A Short EggWatch!

March 8, 2014

Good evening Fellow EggAnticipators,

For our second day of the season we had a superb day. It started quietly with Mom and Dad visiting the nest and doing some egg bowl forming and stick placing. After a bit of that they both flew off camera and mating vocals were heard. They returned to the nest about an hour later and continued nestorations. About midday after some hunting and shopping Mom returned and reports are Dad brought her a small bird for an on nest meal. Mom stuck around as Dad went to Stick Depot for more supplies. She worked on the bowl and just stood watch in between times. Dad brought in a huge stick and our first stick wrestle of the year began.

MNBound Eagles ~ Slapstick ~ 03-07-14

Thanks to Birdbrain56 for the vid.

After that episode Mom worked some more on the bowl and Dad went off to the gym to work on his technique. Mom stayed in the nest looking out and seemed to be just waiting for something. Along about 4:43pm she went into the squat position that signals an egg on the way. And boy was it! After only about 5 minutes of pushing and labor squeeking she stood and moved like she had just completed a very difficult task. She was very stingy with letting us see if she had indeed laid an egg but after about 10 minutes she treated us to our first glimpse of her latest production.

MN Bound Labor and Delivery 3-7-14

If you turn up your sound at about 2:38 into this vid you can hear the egg drop into the grass of the nest just before she moves out of her squat position. Pretty cool! Thanks to Linda Grenci Kabis for pointing that out.

First look at the egg.

MN Bound M7 has been laid on 03-07-2014

A big thanks to dragonlainey for both of the above vids.

After showing us the egg she settled in with a slow motion shimmy and took a nap after her exertions. Dad visited a little later but Mom was still resting so he just played with a big stick for a bit. He then moved off to Peace’s camping branch and kept watch over her. She got up and flew off and gave us a real long look at the egg in the nest.

BBC panned around to find her but instead found Dad looking proud and standing guard. After a short time (that seemed like an eternity to those watching) Mom returned and Dad joined her on the nest to get his first good look at the new egg. They interacted for a minute or two and then Mom settled in for the evening. Dad went to his evening perch and all was good in the cottonwood.

MN Bound Eagles 3-7-14 "Honey Come See What We Have”

Thanks to dragonlainey for the final vid of the day.

Lots of chatters came by to offer Mom and Dad congratulations on their new egg. A lot of questions were asked and answered but by far the most asked question was about the IR or night viewing on the cam. There seems to be a lot of confusion about this so I will try to explain what goes on after dark with the cam.

The cam BBC installed for us in the tree is a dual mode camera. What that means is it works very well in both normal daylight situations and in very low light conditions. During the day the cam works as any cam would taking 30 frames a second and sending us gorgeous pics as a video stream. When it starts getting dark though things begin to change. As the light begins to drop the cam compensates for this by turning up the “gain” in the video stream and the low light performance of this cam is very good. That’s why we can still have a decent picture when people who live in Minnesota are reporting it is dead dark where they are.

When the light is too low the cam switches to night or Infrared (IR) mode. You can see this as a change to a black and white and very grainy picture. So the IR mode of the camera is working here for us. However, all IR cams need some form of IR illumination. They are not true “night vision” cameras like you see being used in the movies (by the way most of those cams in the movies are a cheat in post production. I know cause that’s what I do for a living sometimes.) What is not working for us at the moment is the IR light that BBC installed when they went up the tree that replaced the one that shorted out last year.

BBC said the other day that they just needed to hook it up and it would work for us. I found out today that hooking it up is an involved process. They need to connect it to a power controller (a switch) and then evaluate how much power it will draw, calculate the load on the batteries and decide whether that load is too much, check to see if it can be turned off and on remotely so it doesn’t drain the batteries etc, etc. As the equipment was just reinstalled Wednesday they have not had a chance to perform all of the tasks needed to make all of the gear in the tree work together nicely. So we will just put on our eagle patience and give BBC time to work it all out for us so we can be assured that every thing is working perfectly.

Thank you BBC for all you have done to get us to this point and we await a great night picture in the near future.

This has gotten really long so I will leave it at that and say ”See you on the nest tomorrow!”

TalonStrike

I hate to tell you dear but your mouthwash ain't cutting it!

Should I get the hot water and clean sheets ready??

You toucha da egg I breaka youse fingers!

Season Update March 6, 2014 - Once More, Dear Friends…

March 7, 2014

Never let it be said that throwing the switch on something and turning it on for the world to see isn’t exciting! Today, at about 11:45am, the crew at BroadBand Corp flipped the switch on the MN Bound EagleCam and we began another journey into the unknown!

Welcome, one and all, to the 2014 Season of the MN Bound EagleCam. Word was spread far and wide that the cam was up and friends old and new dropped in to visit. Those that came right away were treated to Dad on the nest doing what he usually does when Mom isn't around, i.e. moving sticks and keeping watch. He looked healthy, vigorous and in great shape in spite of the brutally cold winter that has plagued the Upper Midwest this year.

Mom and Dad both made a visit to the nest about an hour later with her looking as hale and hearty as he. They shuffled the furniture and adjusted the rugs for a while and then went off to do some more shopping to get the nursery just as they wanted it. Mom returned late midafternoon with a fishcicle she got at a local takeaway. Dad returned just after looking to share it with her but she was in a bit of a snippy mood and rebuffed his advances on her meal. After a noshing most of it she did let him have a bite or two.

MNBound Eagles ~ Mine! Mine! Mine! 03-06-14

Thanks to Birdbrain56 for the vid!

They went off shopping again and that gave mods and chatters more time to get reacquainted and reminisce about past seasons and discuss future possibilities. We brought our new friends up to date on the lore of the nest and answered the myriad questions they had. It was like coming home to a very familiar place and finding it was just as you left it. Everyone had a very enjoyable day.

Around 6pm what looked to be a 3-4 year old juvenile Bald Eagle came to check out the nest, a very surprising development. We know juveniles have stopped by before as there was a vid made of one from the year Harmon was in the nest.That juvenile got to hang out for a while but our visitor today was given the bums’s rush by Dad after having only a very short time to look around. Mom followed Dad in and berated the juvie for having the temerity to drop without so much as a by-your-leave!

MN Bound Eagles 3-6-14 Juvie Get Escorted Off Nest

Thanks to dragonlainey for catching this action!

After that bit of excitement the Dynamic Duo settled in for a little more housecleaning and as darkness fell they retired to the low branch for the evening. But Talon, I hear you think, didn’t BBC install a new infrared light so we could see them at night?? Yes, BBC did install the IR light but in the rush to get the cam up today they neglected to hook up that one wire that makes it work. BBC has said they will run back out and do that as soon as they are able, hopefully before the weekend.

Well, our first day of the new season was exciting and filled with joy at seeing our old friends again. We hope for a productive and peaceful season that results in again seeing some new eagles take to the skies!

We’ll see you on the nest tomorrow!

TalonStrike

A final vid for the day from dragonlainey.

MN Bound Sticks ~ Aerating ~ Scrapes ~ Beaking Evening 03-06-14

And some pics from the day!

I wonder if she remembered to get me lunch too?

This looks like a good place to hang with my homies!

Thanks to LoveBirds for the pics of the juvie!

See you all tomorrow! Maybe an egg will show up, we are on eggwatch after all!

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.

March 5, 2014 - Closer And Closer We Come…..Part Deux

March 5, 2014

From the anchor desk at BBC:

Today, we went out to the nest and with us was our little friend Mr. Charge Controller. Charge Controller was excited and couldn’t wait to get back to his job of controlling the electricity for Mr. Eagle Cam.

In the back of the truck sat 4 brand new deep cell batteries. While they are big and strong, they were a little scared because they have heard horror stories of others who have gone before them but never returned, stories of a cold cold place where the dark nights steal away your voltage leaving behind just a cold, heavy swollen shell.

Mr. Inverter could see that the Battery Boys were nervous and reassured them that Mr. Charge Controller and he would do their best to monitor and control all things voltage and to reassure they will stay full of energy and would never need to worry about those terrible stories happening to them.

We all made our way to a clearing under Mr. Cottonwoods protection from the cold winds. Mr. Cottonwood stood silent and tall next to Old Man River. They both seem to approvingly, yet quietly, watch with patience and curiosity.

Then we got real cold and threw everything together as fast as we could and got the heck outta there.

Everything is in and seems to be functioning, but we are not on line because we both had to bolt to address work issues. We will try to get to things up remotely either tonight or for sure sometime on Thursday. It just occurred to me that I don’t think we hooked up the IR,….will go back out tomorrow, we need to make a stand for the one off 80 volt Panel that’s sitting on the ground because we are for sure going to get flooded this spring.

We feel real good about being on line tomorrow,

Gotta run.

Thanks, BBC, for that live report from the field!

Well, it looks like I might get my hatchday wish after all!

Are you all ready?

See you on the nest!

TalonStrike

P.S.: A big thanks to Mark at BBC for waxing poetic today! And a BIG thanks to MN Bound for supplying the new set of batteries!

Minnesota Bound

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