The Millerton Lake Bald Eagle Has Fledged

The Millerton Lake Bald Eagle Has Fledged

Dale Matson

Click On Photographs To Enlarge

First the good news. The bald eagle finally fledged this past week from the new nest on the Madera side of Millerton Lake. The bad news is that this nest originally had two chicks! There were 2 chicks until May 2nd. By May 8th, there was only one chick. There was quite a pile of feathers in the nest. It is possible but unlikely that one chick ate the other. It is also possible that in an unguarded moment, an Osprey that has been flying over the nest on several occasions may have attacked and eaten the chick. If any of you reading this have an idea, please comment.

I have gone up to the nest about once a week. The parents are well known to Millerton Eagle watchers and have been seen for years by the historic courthouse in a big tree. They nested for years by and near the Peck House. They kind of “owned” the dam end of the lake. Since they moved so close to the traditional Golden Eagle territory, they have disrupted their breeding season.

This is the last eagle to fledge from the four nests that I have been watching. Dean, my son Ben and I went up today and Dean said to me, “I don’t think the bird is in the nest any longer.” I said, “Why is that?” He said, “Because it looks like the bird is sitting in that tree.”

And it was sitting in a nearby tree. The eagle was doing quite a bit of wing flapping three weeks ago but we didn’t see any flapping the last two weeks? Go figure.

I took the photographs and video with the new Sony A1 camera and the Sony 200-600mm lens with a 1.4X extender. Most of my shots were cropped in camera also. The morning sun reflecting off the water made it difficult for sharp shots but the adult obliged us by landing quite near our view spot.