A word from RRP....
Raptor Resource Project
We are sad to announce that DN19 died in hatch. We saw the egg’s first external pip at 12:03 PM on March 20, but after four days of hatch in progress, all movement ceased. Hatch had been proceeding for about 103 hours at that point: longer than the longest documented hatch time that we could find, and much longer than the 24 to 48 hours post-pip that we usually see here.
As of this post, we don’t know why DN19 failed to hatch. As usual, DNF laid two eggs about three days apart. She and Mr. North incubated them through roller-coaster temperatures and some bad weather, but spring is unpredictable: if bald eagles couldn’t cope with weather variability, they wouldn’t be nesting here. The first external pip happened on schedule and things appeared to be proceeding normally…until they weren’t.
What about the second egg?
We finally got a good look at the blunt end of the second egg and confirmed that there was not, contrary to our Thursday announcement, a pip: good news, since it means that DN20 could still hatch. DN20 turns 39 days old today and we are watching for a pip.
We’ll be sticking to DN19 and DN20, even though DN19 failed to hatch. We’ll discuss future plans moving forward: nomenclature gets complicated, and I’d like to know what researchers have done in similar situations.
What will you do if both eggs fail to hatch?
If both eggs fail, we’ll try to retrieve them for necropsy and testing. We might not learn what happened, but there are causes – malpositioning, HPAI, environmental contaminants, injury – that we can confirm or rule out.
We would especially like the eggs tested for HPAI if neither egg hatches. Early on, it was believed that the disease was fatal to Bald Eagles regardless of age: if anyone had HPAI, everyone died. But it’s become clear that isn’t the case. If the outbreak is killing young at greater rates than adults, that could have serious implications for population health five to ten years from now.
Will the Norths reclutch if both eggs fail?
Right now, the North’s hormonal regime is driving incubation and brooding behavior. If egg two remains intact, they will probably incubate it for quite some time: long enough to interfere with any potential reclutching. But if it breaks or we retrieve the eggs, they might reclutch. We saw a reclutch at the North Nest in 2018 and reclutches have been documented elsewhere. Mr. North would need to bring DNF back into condition for reclutching to happen.
For you, the broken-hearted nest watcher, I quote Kaeli Swift: “Please, rather than shutting down those deep feelings you have for wildlife…lean into them. Teach your friends and neighbors and children to feel those deep feelings. Because it’s from that space that we can do best by wildlife…”. Thank you so much for taking this journey with us.
Hatch watch starts at our Fort St. Vrain nest on March 31st, and at our Trempealeau nest on April 9. If we have any new updates about the North nest, we’ll post them on our website and Facebook page.
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Topic: Decorah North Eagles 2025 (Read 16694 times)