Mary Lu, I love when they set up cameras like this. The Norfolk Botanical Garden has nesting eagles and we got to check them out on the live cam while we were there a year ago. It was so amazing to watch them. This is so timely as I happened to see a bald eagle perched so stately in a tree on my way home from work today.

Just a few tidbits to enhance your viewing pleasure. The eagle you see on the nest feeding the young can be either the female or the male, as they both take turns raising the eaglets. See if you are able to notice that one parent is notably larger than the other. That would be the female. Female eagles can weigh 10 to 12 pounds, while males are usually in the 6 to 8 pound range. Surprisingly light for such large birds, eh? (Females can have an 8 foot wingspan, and males about 6 foot.) Eagles nest in the winter (hence the nice show going on right now), and the young have often fledged by February. Young eagles take several years to develop the white head and tail of the adult birds. They are usually either solid brown, or brown with various white markings here and there as they are maturing. They have longer wing & tail feathers than the adults, so they often look larger. When you see a turkey vulture silhouette soaring towards you, you will notice a shallow "V" shape to the wings. (Called the "dihedral" angle). When you see an eagle soaring towards you, the wings will be held straight out & flat, with no dihedral angle. So it is often easy to distinguish that the large soaring bird in the distance is probably a turkey vulture rather than an eagle. A huge percentage of an eagle's diet is fish, which is why they so often nest near bodies of water. They will catch fish in their talons the same way an osprey does, but will also steal fish from other birds any chance they get. Why do all the work when another bird has done it for you? And one last tidbit to ponder. Eagles mate in flight. Talk about "feeling the earth move!" ;o) Marcia

Here's the article Bald eagle killed with shotgun in Clearfield County Friday, May 27, 2005 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette The Pennsylvania Game Commission announced today it is investigating the killing of an immature bald eagle found in Clearfield County. A "concerned citizen" reported finding the eagle on May 15 near the Penn/Pike township line north of the Curwensville Dam. A necropsy determined that the eagle was killed with a shotgun between May 10 and 14 and died where it was shot. Based on initial investigation, the eagle was probably perched in a tree at the time of the incident. An immature eagle, which lacks the characteristic white head feathers, is defined as being less than 4 years old. The game commission asks anyone with information to call 570-398-4744. Pennsylvania Wildlife Habitat Unlimited has offered a reward of $500. Nationally, bald eagles were first protected by the Bald Eagle Protection Act of 1940. In 1967, the bald eagle was declared an endangered species by the U.S. government because its population had been decimated by the widespread use of the pesticide DDT. In 1995, after a decade of re-introduction projects, eagle populations rebounded and the species was moved to the federal threatened species list. Today, more than 6,000 nesting pairs live in the continental United States, the game commission said. While the state's bald eagle population has increased by more than 150 percent over the past five years, bald eagles remain on Pennsylvania's endangered species list. Back -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright ©1997-2004 PG Publishing Co., Inc. All Rights Reserved.

I was there when they had babies before. The mother was feeding it seagulls that hang around the water there. Their nest was full of white feathers. The reception to the park has a monitor with the webcam showing the nest but I never saw it online. They have a trolley that stops by the tree but you have to look very carefully to see the birds. Thanks for the link, I'll go take a look at it. Beautiful park by the way.