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| Mama comes in for a landing |
What I've observed in past years is that eagles sitting on eggs takes a few weeks. Mother eagles don't leave the nest if the temperatures are lower than about 60 degrees Fahrenheit, unless eaglets have hatched. This evening, papa eagle arrived in one of the trees near the nest tree. He and mama talked back and forth, then mama flew out of the nest to the tall snag a bit farther from the nest tree.
Mama groomed herself and was freaking out a pair of starlings that were nesting nearby. There have been several of the birds in the vicinity of the snag.
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| Papa grooming with nervous starling nearby |
Papa then flew to the nest tree. That's when I realized it was mama returning to the nest tree. How can I tell? Mama is about 20 percent larger than papa and has a deeper bill. I can tell them apart when they're close to each other but often mistakenly identify one for the other.
The way the nest is built this year should protect it from winds that have brought a couple of their nests down in past years. But it's really challenging to try to figure out whether the eggs have hatched. I'll have to just wait for babies to show themselves. In past years, it's usually mid-to-late April when fuzzy little eaglet heads are visible.
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| Mama flies to the nest tree |
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| Mama talks to her mate before flying back to the nest |
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| Mama back in the nest |
