First Berry eaglet of the year hatches
The watch continues for the second egg as both pass their due dates.
Berry College’s resident bald eagle expert Renee Carleton admits she was beginning to get a little concerned — then an eaglet emerged from its shell in the massive nest high up a pine tree behind the Berry Cage Center.
Now the wait is on to see if a second egg eaglet will also emerge.
The incubation period for a bald eagle is about 35 days, and Monday night was the 41st day since the first egg was laid.
“I was kind of surprised,” Carleton said. The second egg, laid three days after the first, is also a little overdue — but then again, there is very little by the book about the famous pair of eagles that are watched all over the country thanks to the Berry Eagle cam.
Both eggs laid last year were several days overdue and in fact, both hatched less than 24 hours apart, though they were laid three days apart, which is relatively normal for eagles.
“I was sweating it last year,” Carleton said.
Bald eagle nests are typically located near a lake, or river or some kind of body of water since fish are typically a big part of a bald eagle’s diet. It is doubtful that even the keen eyes of a bald eagle can see water from the nest which sits right off the parking lot to the Berry indoor athletic facility.
Carleton said that while Berry does keep an exhaustive record of events associated with the pair, per U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service permit requirements, it does not do any kind of specific research related to the eagles’ behavior.
The permit was issued by the USFWS when Berry originally planned to build the college’s football stadium within yards of the nest tree. The college later decided that could create bad publicity should the eagles abandon the nest.
“One pair does not constitute a viable sample size for any kind of research,” Carleton said.
She said that she is aware of some people who view the nest almost all the time and do have a lot of information about the pair.
“It would be interesting to do something with some of that information,” Carleton added.
The professor said she was also a little worried that she had not seen either adult feed the new eaglet yet, in spite of the fact that half a fish and a squirrel had been brought to the nest by the male adult. The female spent much of Tuesday hunkered over the eaglet and remaining egg, protecting them from the cold, driving rain.