http://bald-eagles-of-broward-county-florida.17.s1.nabble.com/Newspaper-article-with-video-narrative-by-Robert-Flintroy-tp7573495p7573496.html
What a great, accurate article and the video is very well done. Nice job
>
>
> Link to Full story with excellent video narrative by eagle watcher Robert
> "Blackadile Dundee" Flintroy, as well as a slideshow. Anyone who hears
> Robert's enthusiasm this will not help but be enthralled by these eagles!
> <
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-beach/fl-pines-bald-eaglets-20140415,0,3226263.story>
>
> sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-beach/fl-pines-bald-eaglets-20140415,0,3226263.story
>
> Sun Sentinel
>
> Pines eaglets take to the air
>
> Pair hatched in January make first flights
>
> By David Fleshler, Sun Sentinel
>
> 11:55 AM EDT, April 15, 2014
>
>
> A pair of successful student pilots sat in a massive nest in a tall tree
> near Pines Boulevard, one of them tearing at some food with its beak.
>
> The eaglets, which hatched in January in western Pembroke Pines, have
> begun
> to fly.
>
> In the past two weeks, the offspring of the only known nesting pair of
> bald
> eagles in Broward County have hopped from branch to branch, hovered while
> beating their wings, and begun making short flights to other trees.
>
> "It's like watching a toddler learning to walk," said Michelle van
> Deventer,
> bald eagle plan coordinator for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation
> Commission.
>
> The two eaglets, named Honor and Glory by a local eagle protection group,
> are both thought to be female, said Ken Schneider, a birder who has served
> on a city board dedicated to protecting them. One of them is distinctly
> dominant, and on a Monday afternoon, with the adults absent, it could be
> seen raising its wings to block the other from the food it was eating.
>
> But the adults have made sure both get enough food, elbowing the dominant
> one out of the way to make sure the other could eat. The food is a mix of
> prey brought back to the nest – fish, birds made up primarily of cattle
> egrets and white ibises, although once they brought home a tricolored
> heron.
>
> The eaglets learned to fly in careful steps.
>
> "Flight skills need to be developed, especially landing. Taking off is
> more
> about courage, landing is the skill," van Deventer said.
>
> The week or two of flight are the period of maximum danger, with each step
> putting the eagles in danger of ending up on the ground with a broken
> wing.
>
> "If they're grounded, they're easy prey for a bobcat or coyote," Schneider
> said.
>
> Given the dangers of the first days of flight, members of a group of
> volunteers who watch the nest were pretty nervous. When one eaglet
> disappeared for a few days, one of them called the police. A search found
> the eaglet perched in a nearby melaleuca tree.
>
> "No one has reported a long free flight," Schneider said. "We've seen them
> fly from branch to branch, and so they're flight capable, and pretty soon
> they're going to start soaring."
>
> The dangers are not over, of course. Although bald eagles in the wild
> typically live 15 to 20 years, only about half of eaglets will make it to
> adulthood. Hazards include road kills, electrical wires and disease.
>
> Once they have completed their flight training, the eaglets will embark on
> their first migration north, a trip that could take them up to Chesapeake
> Bay. The eaglets are likely to leave by June, van Deventer said. After
> that,
> they will strike out on their own and live as aerial nomads for the next
> few
> years, until they reach sexual maturity and build nests of their own.
>
> Eagles do try to return to their nests, begging their parents for food and
> occasionally getting it. More often, their parents regard them with the
> cold
> eyes with which human parents would regard a grown son or daughter moving
> back home after college.
>
> We had two of the young of previous seasons come back," Schneider said.
> "One
> about four years old, with a two year old, and the two parents chased them
> away."
>
> The Pembroke Pines eagles, whose nest was discovered seven years ago, are
> an
> indication of the recovery of a species that had been down to just 80
> nesting pairs statewide 40 years ago. Following the banning of the
> pesticide
> DDT in 1972, there are more than 1,500 nesting pairs in Florida, home to
> the
> third-largest population in the United States, after Alaska and
> Minnesota,.
>
>
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>
> Copyright © 2014, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
>
>
>
> -----
> Ken Schneider
> Web site:
http://rosyfinch.com> Blog:
http://rosy-finch.blogspot.com>
>
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