soph9! It IS a beautiful picture for sure and the attached article is very interesting reading!

Beautiful picture and interesting article - thanks, soph!

One of the things we've observed this year at the Carolina Raptor Center (CRC) nest is that the adults seem to take the food and hold it up for the eaglet to view, occasionally carrying it partway around the nest before returning to the feeding area. These are non-releasable eagles whose food is provided by the staff at the CRC, so they "hunt/scavenge" differently than most eagles. And we've seen a variety of food - I suspect they have a source for roadkill, in addition to the sorts of food normally provided to captive raptors.

Has anyone else observed this sort of behavior at other nests? Our thread for this nest is here and there are some pictures of the behavior, for those who are interested.

First Feeding

[I hope folks will excuse the fact that I'm pulling this together bit by bit - I could do the draft somewhere and post when finished - but there are lots of new chicks now, so I'd like the partial information available to those who are concerned that it seems a long time after hatching before chicks are fed. ~JudyB]

Young eaglets don't need to be fed right after they hatch - they absorb the yolk before hatching, so are in effect hatched with a full stomach. They won't need food for at least a day, and can go longer than that if necessary. This is useful because if they hatch when the weather is bad, the important thing for the adult is to keep them warm and dry - and getting up to feed them could let in rain or snow.

There have been some reports that the adults may pass drops of liquid to the chicks - this was seen and reported at the Norfolk Virginia nest which has a very high power zoom on its cam, and biologists observing and commenting on some of the activity. [get reference from Sooner Lake thread; see if there's a pic]

(to be continued....)

First observed feeding

Sooner Lake - hatched March 28 7:16 am - first feeding March 29, 7:40 am (there had been previous beak contact between adult and eaglet

This is a very neat list of formidable raptors, mostly eagles, that we never really see. Fantastic looking birds!!! It was posted on facebook by our own Diana/Gogee.

http://listverse.com/2010/04/21/top-10- ... s-of-prey/



This is an example...the Martial eagle from Africa...gorgeous!!