Saturday 8:30am to 11:45am

[Mike Fossler]

Upon my arrival, the two adults were perched on the west malaleuca strand. One quickly left while the other stayed for while.
The eaglets remained alone in the nest for this entire time with no visitations. During the first hour or so, the eaglets stayed low in the nest (sleeping?) with just the occasional head or wing glimpse. Then each began to rise and stretch. Several of the eaglets stood on the edge of the nest and flapped quite a bit.
The three finally showed themselves all at once, but only for a second or so. The remainder of the time only one or two were visible together. The three are distinctly discernible - the oldest is dark with clear mottled white markings on the underside of its wings and no apparent "baby feathers"; the youngest is still covered in its fuzzy feathers on its head and wings and the underside of its wings have not developed the distinct mottled white markings; the middle sibling, as expected is somewhere between these two states but looks more like the older one, ie it is dark and has just a few "baby feathers" but the mottled white markings on the underside of the wings are not as clear and distinct.
I met another nest watcher and photographer, Jim. He stayed the entire time I was there and hopefully will contribute to this forum in the future. Also, Smith joined us around 11am or so.
To our surprise, around 10am or so, a visitor walked up on us as we were photographing the chicks and noted a parent eagle was in a tree right in front of us! Its prescence was masked from our view by the concrete power pole. It had been keeping an eye on the nest the entire time. We suspect it was the original one we saw early in the morning leave the dead tree strand. All the parents left by 10:30 or so and did not return. MF

[Trisha]

Great report Mike!  I've had that same thing happen where one adult has been in the tree the whole time. Last year I was telling someone about what the adults looked like as we thought none where there when a little boy walked up and pointed up to the pine and said they look just like that one! The photos are super and really show the growth of the biggest eaglet....seems like record pace! I don't remember seeing such good shots last yr of them flapping on the nest rim with such fuzzy legs!