Part 4: Three Bridges Eagles, Return to the Nest Platform

By: Larissa Smith, CWF Wildlife Biologist

The drama continues at the Three Bridges eagle nest. When I last wrote about this pair in part 3 of the blog series, they were busy working on a nest in a tree and had not been sighted at the newly installed tower with the nest platform. Eagle Project nest monitors have been keeping a close eye on both the new tree nest and the platform. The pair had been busy bringing sticks to the tree nest.

February 7, 2021@ Joe Mish

This past week nest monitors saw a pair of eagles on the transmission towers and mating on the platform! The volunteer’s have been trying to figure out if this is one pair or two separate pairs. On February 12th, a pair was seen at the tree nest and in the afternoon a pair was seen on the nesting platform, mating. Since then eagles have been sighted at both the nest tree and the nest platform.

February 12, 2021 nesting platform @ Tom Gunia
Tower with nesting platform and eagle pair perched on arm 2/13/21 @ Mary Ellen Hill

It isn’t uncommon for eagle pairs to build more then one nest and perhaps the Three Bridges pair is deciding which nest to use. But the possibility remains that there could be a second pair in the area. The Three Bridges pair laid their eggs on February 23rd last nesting season, so they should start incubation in the next week or two. Dedicated nest monitors will closely monitor the situation to see which nest is used and when eggs are laid.

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  1. The story continues! And what a mystery it is! Monitor Mary Ellen Hill confirmed yesterday that there are indeed, TWO PAIR of adult eagles. She did this by shuttling back and forth between the two sites several times and observing that both pairs remained at their respective locations. Then today, we noticed that one of the four is almost certainly wearing a green NJ band on its left tarsus! This, if confirmed, will greatly aid in knowing who is who!! Neither of the Three Bridges adults wears a band.

  2. The camera is solar powered and the batteries aren’t fully charged due to the lack of adequate sunshine the past few weeks. Hopefully, a few more sunny days and it’ll be up and running.

  3. When is the three bridges nest camera going live ? It appears they are using the nest and she has possibly laid ??

  4. Has the nest camera been abandoned? It doesn’t make any sense to me that not being live has anything to do with solar charging of batteries. I understand if there are good reasons, but I’m just asking so we don’t have to just keep checking here for something that may never appear.

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