Bald Eagle Nest

bradpowellphoto

Here are some recent shots from a bald eagle nest on Denman Island. There are a lot of bald eagle nests all over Vancouver Island and the surrounding Gulf Islands. But this is the only one I know of where you can look down into the nest. The light-coloured chick is much smaller and may have hatched out quite a bit later than the larger dark one. We watched as the larger dark chick consistently got a lot more food during several feedings. The locals said the smaller chick has a good chance of getting pushed out of the nest by the dominant chick. The best feeding was when the mother brought the head of a small shark she had found back to the nest and proceeded to rip pieces off for the chicks.

I used a Canon Rebel XSI and my awesome Bigma (Sigma 50-500) for these shots.

DonRicklin

Nice shots and nice vantage point for you. Are you on an overlook?

Don

bhowdy

Nice images - Especially like the next to last one! Well done

bradpowellphoto

DonRicklin wrote:

Nice shots and nice vantage point for you. Are you on an overlook?

Don

Don

You come out to a cliff that is 100' plus above the beach and the eagle tree is at the bottom by the beach

NorthernFocus

Cool set of shots. What an opportunity to have a vantage point that looks down on the nest. Very nice

I've been taking a lot of eagle shots lately therefore doing a good bit of reading on the subject. It is apparently very rare for two chicks to survive. Sometimes they starve due to the dominant chick getting all the food. Sometimes they are forced out of the nest. And sometimes the dominant (aka older) chick flat out commits fratricide. Another interesting tidbit is that eagle "experts" estimate that about 40% of fledglings do not survive their first flight lesson

In that first photo the bigger chick looks pretty pissed. My money is on the little guy gets shoved out of the nest while mom's out shopping. Hopefully you'll keep us informed how this particular real-life drama plays out .

Thanks for sharing.

bfjr

Excellent find

Maestro

Fantastic photos! I reallly like two and three.

redleash

Those are some truly wonderful shots and moments. I would love to get so close. But since I can't, I might just have to buy a print from ya! I love these shots and these birds!

Thanks for sharing,
Lauren

Mark Edell

Those are some sweet shots. Nice angle for the shots

Cuong

It's beautiful that you got a great vantage point and the sea as the background.

Cuong

Gale

Wow that is wonderful
Super pics
We have to hope the yournger one makes it
Keep us posted
Thanks for sharing

PrescottPhotog

bradpowellphoto wrote:

Here are some recent shots from a bald eagle nest on Denman Island. There are a lot of bald eagle nests all over Vancouver Island and the surrounding Gulf Islands. But this is the only one I know of where you can look down into the nest.

Hi Brad, Wonderful shots.. What a great experience to view the nest from this vantage point. I'm surprised you could get close enough to it without pushing other photos out of the way..

Sadly you are probably right, the little one probably won't last, especially with the head start the older one has on it. Let's hope he makes it though because we can never have enough of these magnificent birds flying around.

dlplumer

These are great Brad

kdog

Great job capturing the nest action from that vantage point.

grimace

Nice series!!

bradpowellphoto

And then there was one......
So one week later we went back to the eagle nest on Denman Island. Sadly we found that the smaller light gray chick had died and was laying in the nest next to its much larger sibling.

Other developments at the nest were that the surviving chick is starting to grow flights feathers and shedding down like crazy and the parents are no longer ripping apart its food they just dump a small fish in for him and let him do it himself.

It was a tough day of shooting as the sun was so bright and made for dark shadows next to the nest and blown-out white heads.

But we saw a lot of action as the parents were in and out of the nest all days.

We are going back in another weeks time to check on the nest again.

NorthernFocus

Hmmmm. The jealous sibling, parents away for hours at a time.....

PrescottPhotog

bradpowellphoto wrote:

We are going back in another weeks time to check on the nest again.

Hey Brad.. #3 is just super, talk about a sky box huh, front row to the world.

bradpowellphoto

Thanks for the kind comments everyone.

I am not really a "bird photographer" compared to some of the members of the photography club I belong to but I have to admit this nest has me fascinated.

Stay tuned as we are going back in 1 week for our 3rd visit in 3 weeks to the nest.

I am really curious as to what the parents do with the body of the dead chick.

nrmdisk

Great shots Brad
I'm on the other coast (NB Canada), and I've been watching a nesting pair for a couple of years - they have 2 this year making a total of 12 young that survived to fly away in the last 5 years. The conditions out there must be much harsher! Pretty cool angle you have there, being able to look down into the nest - my angle is from the ground, up around 100 to 120 feet.
Here are a few of my shots:







Several galleries here: http://nrmdisk.smugmug.com/Birds%20of%20Prey


Looking forward to your next visit...

Neil

Harryb

Excellent set of images and I'm envious of that vantage point you had.