Davenport Eagle Cam (Alcoa Davenport Works, Iowa)

[patis]

Just got here to check and thank you Elf for some great pics...

[golden1]

When the eagle gets up on the limb nearer the cam you sure get face to face contact with it.  I had to chuckle at some of the inquisitive expressions yesterday. 

[AliceWitt]

This camera and the transmission are really great. So clear and the colors so real. I am enjoying this nest and the amount of activity is wonderful.

[elfruler]

A few brief visits yesterday morning:

http://youtu.be/ToT4ut49mMA

Has anyone yet figured out any markings that distinguish Liberty from Justice?  I can see a size difference when they are both in the nest but haven't yet nailed down other features that can tell me whether I'm looking at the male or the female.

[golden1]

When mom is moving sticks and I see her beak I can tell it is her.  However, I have not seen them together enough to know yet either.  ONe of them seems to have a bit of darker shading along the back of their head.  Both seem to have dark feathers around their eyes a bit like the Decorah eagles.  Keep posting what you notice.

[doberman]

Elf, Thanks for the vid from this morning.

I'm assuming that Liberty is the female and Justice is the male?

[elfruler]

That's right, dobe, female is Liberty and male is Justice.  Some other facts:

The nest was built in 2009 about 80-85 feet high in an oak tree a few yards from the Mississippi River.  Liberty and Justice hatched their first eaglets in this nest in the spring of 2010.  The adults live in the area year round, they do not migrate.

I am studying videos intensely to see if I can identify distinguishing marks.  So far, besides the fact that Liberty is a little larger (but not a lot -- maybe 10%) than Justice, I think her coloring is a little more brownish while his tends to be darker.  I think the female's head is a bit squarer on top and the male's more roundish.  And I think the female has a deeper beak (top to bottom), perhaps especially the (upper) maxilla.  The male's head seems purer white while the female's is slightly mottled with a few darker feathers.

All of this is quite tentative -- it depends on the lighting and whether I can see both of them at roughly the same time of day and near each other in the nest.  I have a lot of closeups when one or the other is perched on the Y branch just below the cam so that the head is about 1 millimeter (it seems) from the cam.  I would welcome others' observations, if you can confirm or contradict mine to this point.  I would love to get some definitive features settled.

[doberman]

Thanks Elf. I've been playing catch up on this nest since I noticed it in the Misc. thread.

[AliceWitt]

You can go into the archived files of the blog starting in January 2011 to read the 2011 background of these two eagles, the first year of the cam.  On February 17th an egg appeared in the nest. Over the weekend, on Sunday, February 20th, a second egg appeared. On March 26th the first egg hatched. The second eaglet emerged from its shell the night of March 27th. The parents seemed to have been doing a good job. But on April 4th they reported that the second eaglet had passed away. He was definitely not gaining weight at the same rate as his sibling.

After conducting an on line poll, on May 12th the baby eaglet was named Freedom. (The parents had been named by the Alcoa employees.)

They have had a lot of trouble with this camera in the past year because it was solar powered. Probably similar to what is currently happening in the Sooner Nest. After a lot of disappointment Alcoa set up direct power for the cam.  But then the shed which housed the equipment faced early spring 2011 flooding.

Alcoa has a lot of videos in the blog which require RealPlayer to watch.


http://alcoa.typepad.com/davenport_eagle_nest/2011/01/index.html

[elfruler]

Brief visit this morning.  I think this is Mom:

http://youtu.be/QemgikSjG2U

[doberman]

Let's see if I've learned anything. Eyes and beak looked somewhat female to me. At the beginning of the vid, it looked like the legs were further apart. Isn't that a female trait?

[golden1]

I thought it was mom also.  She has poofy feathers along the back of her head.  They have a darker tint also.  Several of the female eagles have "wild hair do's" but hers is not really wild.  Dad is very sleak around his head.  

I watched her for about 25 minutes.  

Majestic eagle
Wind gently ruffled feathers
Silently watchful

[golden1]

Those are good ways to determine the female.  The female's beak goes back further under the eye than the males.  His beak always seems fatter or wider to me, but not by much.  Some females have a distinctive inverted v at center neck line.  
The visit I watched was from 11 to about 11:30 cst.

[raptor40]

These eagles look like they have the nest pretty much together with the high rails.

Thanks Alice for the thread and elf for the vids and pics.

[elfruler]

Yesterday afternoon, a fascinating and entertaining interchange between Liberty and Justice over a squirrel:

http://youtu.be/NVCdpY5vrN4

It's a long video, the longest sequence is near the end, 20 minutes (cut down from about 40!) of Justice consuming the squirrel in the dark.  You can speed through that if you like, although it has its moments like when he bites off more than he can swallow!