Freestyle Friday in Decorah
From Raptor Resource Project:
An eaglet a day!
March 25, 2024: DN17 is roughly a day old: DN18 has recently emerged from its shell. The eaglets are covered with fluffy white natal down, can't resolve their vision very well, and struggle with coordination and strength. Patient DNF fills every hungry beak.
March 26, 2024: Could it get any cuter? 18 front, 17 back. Their white down is speckled with snow and they are already stronger and larger than yesterday. Their beaks are also getting larger. An eaglet's culmen (measured from the tip of its beak to where the feathering starts on its forehead) achieves maximum growth in the first 10 days. Since food is the root of all else besides - it's not surprising their beaks and gape grow so quickly in early nest life!
March 27, 2024: Sometimes you need more than one photo per day! #cuteoverload
March 27, 2024: DN18's eyes are still receding into their sockets. It turned two days old today!
March 28, 2024: Standing tall! DN17 is growing by leaps and bounds. Look closely and you'll see a tiny little crop: a baby cropzilla!
March 28, 2024: An eaglet's nestoration obsession starts young. We'll be posting more about the ways in which parental and sibling interactions fire up instinctive behaviors.
March 28, 2024: It was just one long adorable day!
March 29, 2024: A poopshoot picasso emerges! Seriously, I didn't realize that was PS around DN18's eye until I took a second look.
We've seen bonking this year, but DNF and Mr. North are keeping the eaglets stuffed with food and the cold is resulting in more cuddle puddles than bonking battles.
March 30, 2024: DN18's egg tooth is mostly gone, thermal tracts might be emerging - it can be hard to tell this early - and it is clearly well-fed and comfortable in the warm, soft nest.
March 31, 2024: Mom! It's fun to watch the eaglets become familiar with their world: recognizing familiar faces, voices, and behaviors, anticipating feedings, and sinking into soft feathers. They are getting stronger, more coordinated, and more adept at using their visual apparatus.
For all we've written about eagle eyes, it never occurred to me that a two fovea mono-binocular four-color system might be hard to learn! Eaglets likely hatch able to see, at least after the first few hours. But it takes time and experience to resolve input from their optic nerve to images that reflect the real world.