Thursday a day of flight practice...

Posted by Trisha on
URL: http://bald-eagles-of-broward-county-florida.17.s1.nabble.com/Thursday-a-day-of-flight-practice-tp2692152.html

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.