More screenshots from Sydney White-bellied Sea Eagle nestcam. The two eaglets are quickly growing their feathers, and starting to be more challenging to tell apart again, but some differences are also emerging.
Two days later, SE29 has turned six weeks old. Their difference in feather development looks even bigger with SE30's wings not folded against its body like SE29's are here. Both are still pretty fluffy under those.
SE29 moving sticks, and standing.
A good peek at pins on the flight feathers, and those fluffy bodyfeathers.
Nice wingers, but don't hit your sibling.
And more loaves today. Both are starting to have fewer and fewer patches on their plumage, but I believe this is SE30. SE30 seems to have lighter feathers on its head than SE29 does, maybe that'll remain the case when their juvenile plumages are complete, too.
SE30 stretching a wing.
SE30, SE29.
I'm noticing SE30 seems to be growing a proportionally bigger beak than SE29 is. Beak size is a sexually dimorphic trait in eagles, so maybe this year we have a big brother and a little sister.
I don't know if the headfeather colour difference in juvenile plumage is also a sexually dimorphic trait or a coincidence, though comparing them to last year's clutch, it would fit the pattern. SE27 is considered by many viewers to be a female (I'm not sure if it might have been confirmed by blood test by now, too, since SE27 spent time in wildlife rehabilitation after fledgling - she has since been released back into the wild), and SE28 a male, and SE27's jvenile plumage had a lighter coloured head than SE28's did.
I don't know if the headfeather colour difference in juvenile plumage is also a sexually dimorphic trait or a coincidence, though comparing them to last year's clutch, it would fit the pattern. SE27 is considered by many viewers to be a female (I'm not sure if it might have been confirmed by blood test by now, too, since SE27 spent time in wildlife rehabilitation after fledgling - she has since been released back into the wild), and SE28 a male, and SE27's jvenile plumage had a lighter coloured head than SE28's did.
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