Eagle Article in Sun-Sentinel

[Square Grouper]

He yall, I am a casual observer of the eagles and a lurker on this forum.  As someone pointed out earlier the Sun-Sentinel was out to do a story on the nest; it is at the top of their home page right now www.sun-sentinel.com.  Here is the link to the story and the text, there is a picture of the one of the eagles feeding the chicks and a video.


http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/pembroke-pines/fl-pines-eagles-20100222,0,5883410.story


The bald eagles of Pembroke Pines are back
First nesting pair since 1970s gives birth to three chicks

Pembroke Pines - Wings extended to their full span, the bald eagle swept toward its nest. A fuzzy gray head popped up above the rim. It was lunch time.

The eagle settled into its home of sticks and grass, tore at some sort of prey with its yellow beak - oblivious to the cars and trucks rushing by on Pines Boulevard - and began gently feeding bits of food to its three chicks.

The celebrated bald eagles of Pembroke Pines – the first nesting pair in Broward County since the 1970s – have returned, and in the past four weeks they have produced three eaglets.

A committee of conservationists and government officials are working to make sure the eagles are protected on their 24 acres of city-owned land.

"We're just absolutely excited the eagles have come back to our city," Pembroke Pines Mayor Frank Ortis said Friday, standing in the traffic island of Pines Boulevard as the eagle fed its young. "It puts us on the map. It's a great, great story for our city."

The city plans a contest among school children to name the three chicks.

Located about 200 feet south of Pines Boulevard just east of U.S. 27, the nest looks down on the barrel-tile roofs of a housing development across the street. The land around the nest is owned by the city, and Ortis would not rule out eventually selling it for development. But he said even if that happened, the city would take steps to make sure the nest was protected, with sufficient room around it for the eagles to remain.

A draft amendment to the city's comprehensive plan would require the city to "protect and preserve bald eagle nesting sites" and to adopt an eagle sanctuary protection ordinance.

Conservationists said they are satisfied the city will protect the nest.

"The city has been totally cooperative with us," said Doug Young, president of South Florida Audubon Society and chairman of the Eagle Sanctuary Steering Committee.

But Young and other conservationists are concerned about public safety, since a lot of people are stopping their cars and wandering into the road to watch the eagles.

The eagles, which successfully raised two eaglets last year, left for the summer, and returned to their Pembroke Pines nest in September, said Ken Schneider, a retired physician and member of South Florida Audubon, who blogs about the nest at http://www.rosyfinch.com.

They found their home battered down to about half its size by wind, and set to work building it up, collecting sticks and lining their home with grass.

The female eagle produced three chicks, an unusual number for a species for which two is typical. The youngest one is considerably smaller than the others, and Schneider said it may not survive because its siblings were competing in the nest for food.

But there are hopeful signs: "We've seen the mother actually reach with a morsel of food, bypassing the others, and feeding the little chick."

And Lynda White, EagleWatch coordinator for Florida Audubon, said she's optimistic about the smallest chick's chances, saying young eagles grow so rapidly that the smaller sibling generally grows big enough to hold its own. "He should be fine," she said. "What usually happens is that the little one catches up."

The eagles prey mostly on fish, caught in nearby lakes and canals, although they also kill cattle egrets, white ibises and small mammals.

Schneider saw one of the eagles bring a rabbit back from one hunting expedition. And on another occasion saw one fly to the nest with a three-foot snake in its talons.

Like other eagles, these rob ospreys of fish they had caught. Schneider said he's seen the angry osprey chase the eagle, but the eagle flies clear of its own nest, reluctant to bring a large and irritated osprey near its young, and just wears the osprey out before deciding it's safe to go home.

Once an emblem of the decline of America's wildlife, the bald eagle has made a remarkable recovery, largely due to the banning of pesticide DDT in 1972. The pesticide washed into lakes and rivers, built up in the flesh of fish consumed by eagles, leading to eggs with shells so thin they broke as the parent eagle sat on them.

The bald eagle was removed from the endangered species list in 2007, although it remains illegal to harm them. In the past 24 years, the bald eagle population of Florida has grown 300 percent, with an estimated 1,340 active nests last year, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

On Friday afternoon, a few people with binoculars and cameras gazed up at the nest and at the adults that perched in a cluster of dead melaleuca trees to the west.

Marilyn Wilde, of Plantation, showed up with her husband Jay and a Nikon camera with a telephoto lens.

"We think it's fascinating that we have a bald eagle nest right in our back yard," she said.