Two Harbors, Santa Catalina Island, CA - Bald Eagle Cam

Direct feed for Two Harbors:
http://www.iws.org/bald_eagles/twoharborscam.html

http://www.iws.org/bald_eagles/nestcam.htm
This page has links to the two Catalina Island cams and the Santa Cruz Island Cam; Catalina cams now use Flash technology, and like our HWF cams, there are occasional ads. The cams are solar powered, so the picture may be less than optimal in bad weather.

The male K81 was hatched at the San Francisco Zoo in 1998 and fostered into the West End Nest, while the female K82 hatched from an egg removed from the West End Nest in 1998 and fostered into the Pinnacle Rock Nest; like most of the Catalina adults, they are generally referred to by their wing tag numbers instead of a nickname. They became a breeding pair in 2003, and K82 has laid eight eggs from 2004 through 2008, six of which have hatched. Because of problems with DDT pollution which can make the shell of eggs too thin to hatch naturally, until 2009, eggs from this nest were removed a few days after they are laid, replaced with artificial eggs, and placed in an incubator; when they hatch, the chicks were returned to the nest. This pair raised two eaglets, male K78 and female K79, from the two eggs they laid in 2007. One of their two eggs hatched in 2008, and they successfully fledged female K83 "Star." In 2009, it was decided that there were enough productive nests on Catalina Island that the eggs would not be removed for incubation, and both their eggs hatched naturally! Females "Thunder" and "Lightning" both fledged successfully, and were both still on the island as of October 2009.

Based on past experience, look for eggs in late February and early March, chicks in early April, and fledging from mid-June to early July.

2009-2010 Season:

• adults return: October 7
  
• eggs laid: February 17, 6:46 pm; February 21, 7:00 pm
  
• hatched: March 27, 8:15 am (38 days); March 28, 7:43 pm (35 days)
  

(screen cap by JudyB)

A note about wing tags: Eagles hatched, fostered or released from hacking towers on Catalina Island have orange wing tags with the letter K and two numbers; the first number is often the year they were hatched - but as there are now more than 10 eaglets per year, the others will get unused numbers from previous years, like K03 at Seal Rocks. Eagles hatched, fostered or released in the northern Channel Islands (including Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa) have powder blue wing tags with the letter A.

(Information from the Institute for Wildlife Studies)

Link to last year's thread for this nest

5:02 p.m. PST, Pouring rain again.

5:06 p.m. PST, 81 on the nest! Pictures later.

ETA: Started watching K81 at close to 5 o'clock. He looked as if he was waiting and watching for a Special Someone. He did a little nestoration while waiting for K82 then finally flew off nest at 5:30 p.m.

7:31 a.m. PST, 26 Jan 2010,

Two Harbors,

2:30 - 2:35 p.m. PST,

K81


Getting ready to leave the nest.

5:07 p.m. PST,

K81 is back on the nest.

4:45 p.m. PST,
K81 is on the nest eating. K82 ate first then flew off the nest; she can be seen on the rocks above the nest.

First egg was laid last night, February 17, at about 6:46 pm, seen at 7:11 pm

Pic courtesy of PamWillie on the CHIL forum, taken at 7:11 pm


Lots more pics and videos are available on the CHIL forum - Two Harbors - Egg...cellent Adventures!