And Now There’s ‘Eagle Cam’

By Dottie Evans

Thanks to modern technology, nature lovers have been afforded the rare opportunity to stay home while watching a pair of American eagles tending their nest. With a little luck, they might also see the actual moment the first chick is hatched.

All that is needed is access to the Internet.

A remote control video camera has been installed by Northeast Utilities over an eagle nest located on the utility-owned Barton Island on the Connecticut River in Massachusetts. By logging onto www.nu.com and clicking on “Eagles Online” viewers may gain access to real-time images of the nest as the camera records them.

The image is refreshed every five minutes between 6 am and 5 pm, Monday through Friday. There is also a link to live streaming video of the nest.

Written narrative accompanying the images explains what has been happening since Wednesday, March 5 when the first egg was laid. A second egg was laid the following Saturday.

Details such about weather and the surrounding environment, as well as biologists’ observations, will add background and information as the days go by and the eagle family grows.

“The pair has remained in the vicinity of its nest throughout the winter, venturing up and down river in search of open water where they scavenge for fish, ducks, and carrion,” stated NU’s online eagle journal during the first week of March.

Nest building took place in February and the eggs appear during the middle of March with a likelihood of two or three eggs in total.

“After an incubation period of 35 days, the eggs should begin to hatch, if the adults do their job and the weather cooperates. They are hatched in the order they are laid. From April through July, the chicks develop quickly, growing from hatchlings weighing only ounces to full grown eagles, tipping the scales at between nine and 11 pounds.”

According to the March-April edition of The Kingfisher, a newsletter published by the Lillinonah Audubon Society and Audubon Center at Bent of the River, Northeast Utilities has been a partner in eagle conservation since 1989. That was the year the original pair of nesting birds was first established on the Barton Island territory.

NU worked cooperatively with the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife to safeguard nesting attempts by installing predator baffles on nest trees and posting signs and buoys to keep boaters away from sensitive areas.

“Changes in the eaglets’ various development stages are dramatic even to the casual Eagle Cam viewer, and they may be observed by nature enthusiasts around the world via the web connection,” the NU commentary states.