Bald Eagles and The Nest Building Time Of Year

Bald Eagles Share The Work
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So its that time of year again.  Time for the bald eagles to separate themselves and return to their annual nesting sites.  Then comes time to fix up any damage the summer and fall storms have done.  Its also the time of the year for trekking to the Conowingo area on the Susquehanna River to watch the eagles.

So up I headed to Conowingo and set myself up at one of the easiest nests to photograph.  I spent many hours standing on the ground looking up into the nest last year.  This was my first trip up this year and I was greeted by two old friends who were busy sprucing up the nest.

It was great fun watching them, they would fuss around the nest rearranging sticks for reasons completely lost on the rest of us.  Then one or both eagles would fly off in random directions and land in nearby trees and start trying to break off branches.  It is actually quite funny watching a creature with no hands, only a beak trying to break branches.  It looks like they are going to fall out of the tree canopy.  I am still working on why they feel the need for fresh sticks as opposed to the myriad of branches that are down everywhere from the ice storm.  Best I can figure is the sticks on the ground stand a chance of being soaked thus bringing the possibility of mold and mildew into the nest.  The only flaw in that thinking is the nest is out in the open and gets rained on.

Returning to the nest with a prize!

This year I decided to audition a video camera for the job of sidekick to my photo camera.  Here is a clip of the eagles working on the nest.  At the end of the video they are looking up watching a vulture fly uncomfortably close to the nest.  A little closer (or if it was an eagle) the female would have taken flight and shown the offending party off.