Monday morning 9:00 - 9:30 AM eaglets doing OK; fire near nest?

[NewMexiKen]

We arrived at 9:00 AM this morning and watched the nest for only about a half hour.The female adult (Joy) was resting in the melaleucas to the west and the male was not present. The eaglets were rather inactive, making us believe they had recently been fed.



P Piney 12 was sitting quite high.





P Piney 13 joined his sister only briefly. At one point it appeared that the eaglets were tearing at prey in the nest.



Yesterday morning I saw this fire in the junk yard at the SE corner of 208th & Pembroke Rd, only about 1/2 mile SE of the eagle nest. The smoke abated. This evening I saw on the 6:00 PM news that there is a controlled  burn along US 27 south of Pines Boulevard. It looked pretty extensive but I could not recognize its exact location. They did not say whether it was on the east or west side of US 27. I presume it is no threat to the eagle nest and is unrelated to what I saw yesterday morning, but eyes on the ground, be aware.

This photo is taken from SE 196th/Miramar Parkway extension at the Harbour Lakes Water Conservation Area, looking to the NW with the eagle nest area more to the right and obscured by the melaleucas along the west side of SW 208th just behind the fire.

[NewMexiKen]

UPDATE-- photo taken at 7:15 AM Tuesday FEB 4--

The controlled burn is still active but it is a relatively cool fire contained in a small area that is a safe distance from the eagle nest. A slight breeze is blowing the smoke in a southerly direction.

As best as i can tell, the area of the controlled burn is about 0.9 miles to the SSE of the eagle nest tree (a heading of about 168 degrees). It seems to be in a patch of Melaleucas on the very SE corner of Pembroke Road and SW 208th Avenue. The SE corner of the "Eagle Forest" is about 2/3 of a mile from the northern extent of the burn area.  



A media helicopter hovered briefly over the area.