White Bellied Sea Eagle

[AliceWitt]

The White bellied Sea Eagle's scientific name is Haliaeetus leucogaster and is Australia's second largest bird of prey (Wedge tailed Eagle is the largest). Sea eagles are not true scientific eagles but are really giant Kites.

The White-bellied Sea-Eagle is a mainly a white and black (dark grey) bird.
White on the head and underneath (belly) and the leading front of the wings and black (dark grey) on their back and the back half of the wings.
The tail is wedge shaped, mainly dark grey with a whitish tip
Females are slightly larger than males
Their hooked bill is dark and their legs are a creamy color with long black talons which with tiny spikes in the soles of their feet they use in grasping slippery fish etc
Their voice has been described as "loud deep goose-like honking"
Juveniles (young sea eagles) are a speckled brown

During Australia's Winter and Autumn one or two eggs are laid in a nest made out of an outer skin of sticks and an inner padding of leaves in tall trees near water.
If no trees are available and there is a lack of egg predators sea eagle nests can be found in shrubs or on rocky ledges
Hatching takes 40-44 days, with a further 95 days of life in the nest, and then a further couple of months of dependency on its parents. White bellied sea eagles can begin to breed at the age of 5 and can live up to 30 years of age.

http://www.ustream.tv/seaeagles

This nest is near the Olympic Village in Australia.
FIRST EGG: Start the fireworks!!! At approximately 5:40pm on the 4 July the first egg was laid.
SECOND EGG: The second egg was laid at 6:00pm on the 7 July local time Australia. Mum is staying very close to the eggs. The temperature was down to about 4C (39F) this morning.

[dt]

Thanks, Alice.
I ran across "Sea Eagles" in a book I was reading recently so of course I went to my
bird book shelf and...
NOW I can watch them, too!

dt

[doberman]

Alice, it's funny you should mention the Sea Eagle tonight. I just checked out the Usteam Live Cam. She looks small, hard to believe the wing span on them.

[AliceWitt]

Mom and Dad have been taking turns all night in this very cold weather incubating the eggs. She is beautiful.
A lot of the Aussies have been watching the Decorah Eagles, but since there will be more activity in their nest and less in Decorah I think the numbers will increase.

Isn't she a beautiful Mom?

[AliceWitt]

Yes, the camera is operated solely by volunteers 24/7. The chat does have a moderator, but I can't remember seeing many posts. Remember, they are a half day off from us, their day is our night and our night is their day.
Their chat is somewhat like the social stream we had for a while rather than being like our chat. I haven't posted yet or asked a question because there are so few people on line during our days. I plan to do some research and then ask some questions. I have seen them change incubating sports, but am not sure who is who, Mum vs Dad. The female, as in our bald eagles is the larger; but I would like to find out about any beak, feather, or color differentiations.

[AliceWitt]

"Morning has broken, like a sweet morning"

Australia is awakening and parents are switching incubation duties.

[Lois Ann (lannml)]

Alice,

thanks for posting the information on the Aussie sea eagle cam.  I suspect that there may be several of us EA's that migrate to this camera with our Decorah and Norfolk e's soaring and being eagles.....

Lois Ann

[AliceWitt]

I got this information late last night:

EagleCAM
Hi Alice, I am a Mod on the Ustream site. Unfortunately, we are all professional people so we have little time to be on the site for chat. We are hoping we can recruit some Birds Australia volunteers to become Mods on the site. Regarding the eagles, it is quite difficult for us sometimes to identify with certainty the male and female when they are just static on the nest. There are clues however. The male bird is slimmer in appearance, has a thinner neck and a smaller head. His head shape is quite distinct from the female's; he has a much rounder crown. His behaviour on the nest is different also - he is much more attentive to his surroundings than the female. The female is more likely to arrange a few sticks on the nest when she is sitting whereas the male is constantly looking around into the forest. The female has a larger patch of dappled white on her shoulders and has more feathers on her legs. In flight, the birds are relatively easy to tell apart, not that that is much use when they are sitting on the nest. The female has white tips to her underwing primary coverts (you can see this on the flight shots on the Ustream background wallpaper). This is an individual difference rather than a general difference between males and females. I hope that helps!

[dt]

I got this information late last night:

EagleCAM
Hi Alice, I am a Mod on the Ustream site. Unfortunately, we are all professional people so we have little time to be on the site for chat. We are hoping we can recruit some Birds Australia volunteers to become Mods on the site. Regarding the eagles, it is quite difficult for us sometimes to identify with certainty the male and female when they are just static on the nest. There are clues however. The male bird is slimmer in appearance, has a thinner neck and a smaller head. His head shape is quite distinct from the female's; he has a much rounder crown. His behaviour on the nest is different also - he is much more attentive to his surroundings than the female. The female is more likely to arrange a few sticks on the nest when she is sitting whereas the male is constantly looking around into the forest. The female has a larger patch of dappled white on her shoulders and has more feathers on her legs. In flight, the birds are relatively easy to tell apart, not that that is much use when they are sitting on the nest. The female has white tips to her underwing primary coverts (you can see this on the flight shots on the Ustream background wallpaper). This is an individual difference rather than a general difference between males and females. I hope that helps!

Thanks, Alice!

[AliceWitt]

I've noticed in watching this pair that when Mom is incubating the eggs she spends a lot of time just picking up sticks and putting them back down. Dad on the other hand seems to be always attentive to his surroundings. Even in the night (during our day they are 14 hours different from Decorah time) he is constantly looking around. Doesn't bother with rearranging the nest materials. They also have very quick changes when their "shift" ends. Only once was it slow enough to actually see the eggs.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8pwXsc-1DE

[Lois Ann (lannml)]

If you are watching the Ustream broadcast of this pair of sea eagles in Sydney Australia, and observe the parents switching off on nest duties, the folks running the camera would like to be notified of it ....

From the sea eagle ustream information below the video window:

"If you see any interesting behaviour and if, in particular, you see a changeover of incubation duties during the night (about an hour after the picture has changed from colour to black and white) then please email us. Remember to include time and date and also your location, so that we can correlate your time with Australian time (AEST)." Note there is a link to their email for reporting the information. 

I found this a nice way of being more involved in their project...

Lois

[AliceWitt]

Mom's on the left and Dads on the Right.
Sea Eagles are the largest Australian raptors. They are much like the American Bald Eagle in Size. Their nests are also 6 feet or better in diameter.
It isn't easy watching this nest since we are 14 hour different; maybe the chicks will hatch during their night (our day).  

[RedBird]

Alice, I have been watching this nest and been trying to catch a glimpse of these gorgeous birds.  I have enjoyed your clips and photos, since I have not been able to see them together.  I am sure it takes a lot of watching to be able to distinguish between them.  Thank you for posting.  I did see a couple of videos on the sea eagles' catch of sea snakes and it sounds like this is the preferred diet.  We may possibly be seeing some of these venomous creatures in the nest when the prey buffet is set up for the young ones.

[Lois Ann (lannml)]

Screen capture this morning as Mom checks out the eggs in the nest!

[jfrancl]

I have been to Australia and recall seeing the White Bellied Eagle. I am not as knowledgeable with them as I am with our American Bald Eagles.  I believe they were on the threatened list in Victoria, Australia.  Are they still categorized as threatened?  Yes there is about a 14 hour difference in time, depending on where you live and they are in the winter season now.