Eagle News
An adult from the pair of eagles at the City Cemetery in Ackley.
Many eagle nests across the Midwest already have downy-covered eaglets being attended to by adults. Other nests, have folks on “hatch watch.” That is true at the eagle nest near me and those monitored by our friends at Raptor Resource Project. As of early on the 31st March, two eggs have hatched at Decorah North Nest and folks are anxiously awaiting the first eaglet at N2B by the Trout Hatchery! (I’ve not heard if the pair near me have any hatched yet… the picture here is of one of the adults from that nest taken earlier this March! Thanks to Officer Jones for keeping an eye out on this nest!)
In other eagle news… Thora had plenty of education time this winter at three bald eagle events and one spring celebration. For now, Thora is still the go-to-ambassador for the large public events with the potential for much noise and distraction.
Decorah continues on his training path. He sees Kay daily (or her daughter Savanna) and he “chitters” to her. (I wonder what they talk about?) He is becoming more adept at using all his perches – bow perch and tree stump are his faves. Now that the temps are warming, he’ll have a larger bath pan, so water play can happen again. What I’m learning about eagle ambassadors, more so than other education birds, eagles really need that consistent training and almost daily contact with the trainer to be successful. Kay and Decorah will continue their training this spring. It is such a huge responsibility to have even one education bird!
Having the time to consistently work with education birds is difficult when SOAR also receives 300+ patients a year. If only SOAR had a way to hire a person solely devoted to working with education birds and programming! A girl can dream, right?
The featured image on this post is of a very bashful Decorah earlier in March… Kay said he wasn’t in the mood to be photographed.
Hard to believe that we will be celebrating another Decorah “Hatchaversary” in just a few days. Stay tuned…
~Linette