JAN 6: Pair exchanges incubation duties

[NewMexiKen]

Following this morning's South Florida Audubon Society wetlands walk at the SW Regional Library, we met up at the eagle nest with two of the participants, arriving about 10:35 AM. The male adult (Pride) was incubating deep in the nest, but we did not see his mate (Jewel). He called out a couple of times and we assume Jewel was roosting behind the nest out of sight. After about 10 minutes she suddenly flew in from behind the nest and made a couple of passes in front of the nest before landing on it upwind from behind.





Jewel, noticeably larger than Pride, is on the left:



The two adults spent only 90 seconds on the nest together, looking down. Just before Pride flew up, he picked up some small object, possibly prey remains or waste, but dropped it. For a moment I thought he might be feeding an eaglet, but this seems unlikely:



Pride flew to roost just above the nest, and Jewel resumed incubation duties: