Eagletmania

As anybody who knows me can tell you, I have this thing for large birds. I think great blue herons are elegantly Seussian. Ospreys seem to be all around me these days. And when I see a bald eagle I start to lose it. I didn’t see a bald eagle in the wild until I was in my 50s. Now I see them nearly every day on my ride to work. Unfortunately they seem to be abandoning more nests than they are occupying. The three nests that I ride past each day all seem to be abandoned or taken over by opportunistic ospreys.

So lately I have turned my attention to the eagle cam at the National Arboretum in DC. There are two cameras with sound above an active bald eagle nest. For the last month or so, a pair of eagles have been incubating two eggs. A couple of days ago, while I was riding to work, one of the eggs hatched. The eaglet is Chaplinesque in its wobbliness. It’s so wobbly its parents had trouble getting food into its mouth for the first day.

Today at work was pretty frustrating. Computer problems were driving me up a wall. I needed some therapy. So I called up the eaglecam and right there on the phone on my desk an eaglet broke through its egg. DANG!  Here’s a shot from the Instagram account.

You should check this out. Beware. It’s totally addictive.

http://www.dceaglecam.org/