Golden Eagles Part 3: The Third Chick Is Not An Eagle

Dale Matson

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3rd Chick

As the month of April ended and May began to unfold, these white fuzzy chicks continued to grow and change color as the surrounding fields changed from green to brown.

But there was something, something not quite right, about the development of these three chicks. Why was the runt changing to a darker color before the other two chicks? Shouldn’t the other chicks be changing color sooner? Additionally, the runt seemed to have the most energy. He was walking around the nest while the other siblings slept most of the time. The runt also had a rounder head and much smaller beak.

I continued to hope before each visit that there would be three chicks in the nest. Could this little bird survive or would the chick starve or be eaten by the siblings?

By mid-May I began to realize that we were not looking at an eagle chick at all. If this was the case, then that opened up the original mystery once again. Where did this chick come from? By the following week, we had identified the chick as a Red-Tailed Hawk. I went on the internet and found a case of a hawk being raised by Bald Eagles on Vancouver Island. Well, how did that hawk get in the eagle nest? The experts there agreed that the best theory was that a hawk nest had been raided by a bald eagle and two chicks had been brought back to the eagle nest. One “disappeared” and the other was raised by the eagles along with their three chicks. That must have been a lot of ‘groceries’.

Maybe, hopefully, that would be the case with this chick. The chick seemed to be doing fine and getting along with the eagle chicks. They often slept together in one big pile. However, the hawk chick did stand apart from the other two quite often.

I could always tell when a parent was about to fly-by because all three chicks would look up in the same direction. I had to be reminded that even eagle and hawk chicks have eagle and hawk eyes. They saw the parent before we did even when we used our 10 power binoculars. The birds also watched us as we sat watching them. It was a kind of mutual observation experience.

As these chicks continued to develop and grow, the eagles were pretty much on a sleep/eat cycle with occasional walks around the nest. The hawk was the hyperactive child moving around quite a bit with lots of head bobbing. The hawk began to do a lot of wing flapping too as the eagle chicks looked on in a detached way. The chicks in this nest were probably about the same age and hawks fledge in about 45 days while the goldens fledge in about 65 days. If all went well the hawk would fledge before one of his siblings ate him. I continued to hope that mom and pop continued to bring lots of food to the nest.

This was turning into quite an experience. Not only were Sharon and I watching these eagles develop, we were watching something previously undocumented. This is not to shortchange the eagle chicks which were also massively beautiful.

We were also concerned that to publicize this too soon could lead to an army of visitors that might cause the adults to abandon the nest. It is always a question in any wildlife research of how much observation and what kind of operation is adequate. How close is too close and how many visits are too many visits. Remember, we were watching eagles who know you are coming an hour before you get there. My hope was that at some point one of the adults would bring food to the nest while we were there. Until then, we would make our visits as short and infrequent as possible.

I once photographed a mule deer in Kings Canyon National Park near Reflection Lake with two collars (both a radio collar and GPS collar). Case in point, I wrote an article about this on my blog in 2014. http://midsierramusing.blogspot.com/2014/09/wildlife-research.html

 All Sleeping Together

 Adult Fly By

 Color Contrast

Adult Fly By

 The Deer Were Curious Also

 Hawk Fledge Practice

My question at this point was:

"Would this hawk make it to fledge?" Stay tuned for Part 4.
Here is the YouTube video of this story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R_d2KGmJAs

   

Golden Eagles Part 2: The Mystery Begins To Unfold

Dale Matson

Click On Photos To Enlarge

Before I visited the nest again we got a significant amount of rain over several days. I was concerned for the eggs and the adults who would have to sit on the eggs under such horrible conditions.

The next trip up I became even more concerned when it appeared that the Golden was spread over much of the nest. I could make nothing of it and hoped that the bird was simply brooding the chicks that may have been newly hatched. I had one flyover by the other adult and decided to leave.

I was concerned as I made my next trip that had become a twice a week visit. Would the nest be empty? Did the adult die and buzzards clean things up?

When I got there, the adult flew from the nest and as I sat down to photograph the nest, two white balls could be seen with unaided eyes. The two eggs were now two chicks. They moved around the nest on unsteady legs and I got both photos and somewhat shaky video. I was really excited and could barely wait to get back to tell Sharon about the new chicks. There were two new Golden Eagle chicks and the previous visit was probably the adult brooding the new chicks in the cool morning air. At that point in their lives, the chicks were not able to thermoregulate.

My next trip up, I included a tripod for video. This added another 3 pounds to an already heavy camera bag, water, spare batteries and food. The area along the lake has almost continuous winds which is why the Goldens like it there. They are able to soar on the updrafts and glide for minutes at a time. I was also impressed with how they could weave their way through the trees at near ground level looking for squirrels, rabbits and other land animals. I have seen them down by the lake going after the coots too. Unlike bald eagles, the goldens generally are not fish eaters. As I tried to video the chicks, the wind kept moving my tripod around so I decided to try my video attempts hand holding the camera and lens and eliminate the tripod from the pilgrimage.

Sharon usually comes up with me once a week and on this particular occasion, I took a few preliminary photos to make sure my camera settings were optimal. We were now going there in the early morning to avoid the heat as the season progressed. As I reviewed my photos, I looked and looked again. I said to Sharon, “Is it possible we missed seeing one of the chicks all this time?” She said that I must be looking at nest debris.

We left our customary location to get a little closer and sure enough, there was a third white fuzzy chick about two thirds the size of the other two chicks. We then surmised that this was a runt, hatched later but we never noticed a third egg. Maybe it was in an area of the nest we couldn’t see. Well, we were now hoping this chick would survive also.

When we returned home, I reviewed all my photos which were accumulating at an alarming rate (I had to buy a separate 256 gig USB memory stick for just the golden eagle photos). I had even deleted the poor shots. No, there was no prior evidence of a third chick. Well, the odds were against the chick since most of the time only two eagles survive to fledge.

It also concerned me that I had only seen the remains of an animal on the nest once. It seemed like all the YouTube videos had golden eagle nests littered with various and sundry animals partially eaten. I was hoping the chick would not become emergency rations for the larger two chicks. And yet….it still bothered me that we had not seen this third chick before.