New eaglet and new eaglet name

More looks at babies of different ages at four different Bald eagle nestcams.

Starting with the Two Harbors nest on Catalina Island, where a tiny eaglet has just hatched! Pictured here with dad Chase, resting after all the effort that breaking out of an egg takes.

The pair at Two Harbors are Cholyn and Chase, both 23 years old, with an impressive 19 years of nesting together. The nest is on the same island as the West End nest I've been posting screenshots of (and more of those later in this post), and is also the natal nest of West End's current female, Thunder. Cholyn and Chase are her parents, so this little one is Thunder's sibling.

West End is also where both Cholyn and Chase are from, which sounds bad but isn't - they aren't related, more like switched at birth. Cholyn is a biological chick of the trio of eagles that were nesting there at the time - male Shenandoah, and females Wray and Diana - but she hatched in artificial incubation and was fostered in a different nest on the island. Chase's biological parents are a captive pair at San Francisco Zoo, but he was raised by the West End trio. And then they ended up as mates as adults.

I don't know how closely I'll watch this nest, there are already so many eaglets to keep up with, lol, but I'm happy to see the little bobblehead welcomed into the world. All the Channel Islands nests are part of Institute of Wildlife Studies' conservation program and ongoing restoration of a population of Bald eagles in the area after DDT contamination had wiped them out, and every new eagle hatched there is extra precious.

And here's some more precious Catalina eaglets, Thunder and Akecheta's triplets at West End. Oldest eaglet WE1 (left) is 28 days, or exactly four weeks, youngest eaglet WE3 (middle) is 24 days, and WE2 (right) is 26 days old in these screenshots. No parent at the nest at the moment, but they are both nearby. The weather is warm and the chicks are panting to cool themselves.

Got some beautiful closeups of the woolly birbs!

Both parents home, mom Thunder on the left, dad Akecheta on the right.

Akecheta shielding the chicks from the hot sun.

 

 

Then onto the next nest, and the new name. Almost 5-week-old chick at the Big Bear nest showing off its pinfeather-tastic tail and wings. Dad Shadow at the nest with the chick at the moment.

Standing tall!

They're so cute when they look directly in the camera's direction.

More of that this morning, with mom Jackie at the nest with the chick. And looks like I can stop calling the chick just chick now, because the naming contest has been resolved, and the winning name is Spirit!

Jackie, Shadow, Spirit.

Closeups of Spirit and a work-in-progress juvenile plumage.

Also a couple of family portraits from the Southwest Florida nest, where both fledglings E19 and E20, and both parents Harriet and M15, spent the night roosting on branches of the nest tree last night.

The eaglets are both 14 weeks old, and the younger sibling E20 has been a fledgling for two weeks today.