The female has been in her snow filled nest nearly all afternoon. The male was in and out. At 2:10 he flew to the front branch. At 2:14 the female delivered her first egg. Now the big question is will it survive? The nest is still layered with snow. The female is doing her best to incubate the egg, but when she gets up you can see that the egg is on snow. It is going to take a miracle.
Photo 1 & 2 – Female with egg, Photo 3 Male (right) and Female inspecting egg, Photo 4 the egg – will weigh about 1/4 pound
7 Comments
I hope and pray that the egg will make it. Hopefully she has enough body heat to melt some of the snow while sitting there. We just have to wait and see.
Margy
I’m hoping for a miracle.
I’m right along with y’all. S/he’s got to survive. Seems Mom is doing a wonderful job so far.
reese, it’s 9:00PM and she’s been standing over the egg for a while. Can you explain this behavior?
Reese, It is 11:00pm and it appears she has left the egg alone in the nest. Will she come back? Will there be other eggs this season or was that it for the year? What if anything will she do with this first egg if her instinct has let her know it is not viable? Sorry for all the questions but we have had the nest streaming live into our classroom 24/7 for two weeks and the kids are really hooked. We watched the PBS Eagle special together on Friday and they really have their heats into this project. They are going to be so disappointed.
Thanks for any info you can provide.
Renee Clover
Renee – This pair of eagles has layed three eggs several years in the past and will likely do so again. We will have to wait to see. Eggs layed 2 to 3 days apart. It is usual for eagles to only partly incubate their first egg(s) so that they will hatch closer together. Since this first egg was layed in a nest full of snow, we are very cautious about its prospects of hatching. We expect she will incubate the entire 35 to 38 day period.
In the video, the male on the branch. He appeared to be craining his neck and screetching. was he announcing the delivery of the first egg or sending a warning to all other birds out there? It “appeared” that that is what he was doing. any input on that reese? Hope the egg makes it.