Part 6: Three Bridges Eagles Fledge
by: Larissa Smith, CWF Wildlife Biologist
I started writing the Three Bridges blog series at the end of November 2020. At the time we had no idea if the eagle pair would return to the newly installed nest box, nest somewhere else or nest at all this season. In the last blog post Part 5, the eggs had hatched. Since that last blog a lot has happened at the nest. On April 2nd nest monitors determined that hatching was occurring and on April 14th it was determined that there were two chicks. On May 14th, the nest was visited by PSE&G and NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife, Endangered and Nongame Species Program. The chicks were banded with silver federal bands and green NJ bands H/04 and H/05. Both chicks were determined to be males. During the nest visit the camera was fixed and a whole new close up view of the nest appeared.
Cam viewers got to watch the young eagles as they learned to feed themselves and started preparing their wing muscles for flight, by flapping and hopping around the nest. When eagles are nesting in a tree the young will perch on branches which is called “branching”. In this case the chicks don’t have any branches, so the perches were built as substitute branches. Nest monitor, Mary Ellen Hill, got the below screen shot of one of the chicks perched for the first time. The young eagles also used the metal arm of the pole for perching.
On June 20th, H/04 took his first flight and his brother H/05 followed on June 22, all of which was caught on camera. Eagle Project volunteer Diane Wilson Cook has made a webpage, Bald Eagles at Three Bridges with the video clips from these flights. The fledges have been returning to the nest platform since fledging. The parent’s are still bringing food to the nest for the young eagles as they will be in the nest area for the next few weeks as they learn to hunt and survive on their own.
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