Again this year I've joined the Eagle Posse at the Draper Museum of Natural History in the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. Last year, my first, was spent with Nicole sitting 580 yards away from an awesome golden eagle nest east of Cody and documenting all the happenings from May 15th through the last baby fledging the end of July.
This year started out different in that we were each given six nests to check up on to see which ones were active. I only had the coordinates for five of mine but it appeared as all were not being used this year. I now have the location of the sixth nest but couldn't get to it this morning. I've been assigned one on the list and altho the first two checks revealed no adults in the vicinity, today I hit a jackpot. Not only was there an adult on the nest but her mate was around too.
I spent the first hour or so watching the female stand in one place, period. She never moved anything but her head. Then a bit after that she took off and flew to the top of the cliff. About 15 minutes later she landed back on the nest and began eating something, looked like a rabbit. Imagine my surprise when she slowly leaned over and delicately handed some food to a chick in the nest. She gave no hint that there was a baby but she fed him a lot of tiny morsels. I only got to see his head as the nest is deep and I was below it but it appears to be a strong little ball of white fluff. Only one so far and that may be all there is but I'll keep looking.
Our job is to monitor at least six hours a week at different times and record what's going on every 15 minutes plus making comments in a log book. There will be awards for the most hours, most miles (they'll probably both be won by Rose) and the best comment on our sightings. I may also share my monitoring with Melissa and her two interns as it's a long drive to this years nest.
The last few times I have been to our Chief Joseph nest, the baby has spend most of the time cheeping, and cheeping, and cheeping.
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