Thursday a day of flight practice...

[Trisha]

The sky was so clear and blue that even our eagle family couldn't resist enjoying its beauty. Smith and Al said that in the morning both young were on the nest seemingly picking at or eating something. One adult had been to the nest earlier. The adult and Hope took turns separately sitting in the favored perch left of the nest. This always affords the photographers great shot opportunities, especially takeoffs and landings. One problem with this location now is the attack of the grackles. There were always 2 or 3 diving whoever was perched there. The eagles were annoyed but remained and eventually the attackers moved on. (Occasionally they were even diving them as the eagles flew in the area)

When I arrived around 8:45 the nest was empty but within a half hour I spotted the siblings flying quite high over the dead trees to the right. They flew around for a long time and gave us a great airshow as they flew around the nest and soared above our heads. Hope flew back to the tall left pine and Justice just kept flying. He was soon joined by an adult and they really put on an airshow high to the right of the nest. This show was full of stunts....lots of twisting and diving each other and really interactive flying. We hated for it to end!

I left about 11:30 as Justice was the only eagle barely visible way back in the dead trees to the right. One thing of note is that we had ample opportunity to compare the color variations in the siblings. Hope has really filled in with a lot white(not head and tail) and many shades from light to dark of brown feathers. I "hope" to post soon(?) some of the flight shots of Hope...her color pattern is beautiful.

Justice is much darker brown...more uniform in shading and appears very smooth and sleek. I have read elsewhere that females have a ruffled look, even in the adults. This holds true with our family, as I have noticed that the white head of our female is puffier than the male and she seems to often spend more time preening and pulling at her feathers (are we surprised?)

I really miss seeing Ken and Mary Lou at the nest...we feel "leaderless." I hope you all are well and enjoying family and being in your northern home.

[Jill W]

Great report, Trisha!  I'm glad to hear that the eagles were flying around and getting some good practice in.

If you would like to email me your photos you want posted, I'd be glad to post them for you.

Jill

[NewMexiKen]

Thanks, Trisha, for that great report. We feel almost as if we are still there. How great it would have been to see the interactive flights of the siblings. Your description of the plumage and profile differences between the siblings is very interesting. Justice's breast seems to have been darker overall from the beginning. We have noticed that the adult female does appear more "ruffled" and has a more prominent bulge in her lower abdominal area. That and the thicker base to her bill, that makes it look stubbier than the narrow bill of the male, along with her larger size, are often quite distinctive. I should say that Ed took fairly comparable photos of both adults so that I could calculate their ratios of bill length to width at base, but I found that both of his female shots had the lesser ratio (thicker base), but so did one of the two male photos! Maybe the photos were not exactly at the same angle, or maybe our eyes are better at noticing the subtle difference. To me, the male's forehead seems more in line with the top of the bill than the female's which gives her the look of having more of a "forehead." We'll have to see if this is a useful distinction-- maybe next year!

It will be very interesting to know at what point the adults stop bringing food to the nest, and also when the young birds stop coming to the nest at night. Once all the information is in, I plan to edit the PowerPoint slides and add narrative information to describe the entire life cycle from nest building to departure of the family.

Best wishes to everyone! We are very busy helping our daughter and family as they are having construction in their home. Mostly minding the two granddaughters-- labor of love!

Carina, Soon to be four years old:



Graciela, just turned five:

[Trisha]

Hi Ken and Mary Lou! I'm so glad to hear from you all and find that things are going well. The eagles you used to film almost daily have been replaced by 2 adorable human subjects! You are very lucky!

I thought I saw the beak differences in the adults also, but as you noted....different angles gave me different results as to who it was! We will keep watching and hopefully be able to document the nest departure.

 

[Trisha]

Jill, thanks so much for your offer. If I can ever find time to go
through all my shots I could pick the ones for you to post. Do you
need them cropped first? If I could just stay away from the nest I
would have more time to play with my pictures instead of adding more!
Hope to see you soon.

Trisha

On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 8:54 PM, JillW (via Nabble)
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> Great report, Trisha!  I'm glad to hear that the eagles were flying around
> and getting some good practice in.
>
> If you would like to email me your photos you want posted, I'd be glad to
> post them for you.
>
> Jill
>
> ________________________________
> This email is a reply to your post @
> http://n2.nabble.com/Thursday-a-day-of-flight-practice...-tp2692152p2700968.html
> You can reply by email or by visting the link above.
>
>

[Jill W]

Trisha,
You don't have to crop your pictures if you don't want to.  I doesn't matter to me.  Just let me know if you want me to leave them as is or crop them.
Jill