The female bald eagle at Hays in the City of Pittsburgh, laid her first egg of the season half an hour after sunset on Friday, 11 February 2022 at 6:22pm. As soon as the egg was dry she began incubation.
Her mate roosted nearby and waited for dawn to see the egg and trade places with her. It takes 35 days of continuous incubation before the egg will be ready to hatch.
The Hays female usually lays several eggs, each one 2-3 days apart.
Some raptors draw attention if you know where to look.
This winter a snowy owl has been hanging out at Union Station in Washington, DC often perching on the Ceres statue (above) in Louis Saint-Gaudens’ Progress of Railroading series. (Ceres is indicated by arrow below.)
Meanwhile, back in Pittsburgh, a peregrine falcon drew attention in late January at Duck Hollow when it harassed a bald eagle on 29 January, captured by Joe Fedor.
Peregrine falcon chasing bald eagle at Duck Hollow, 29 Jan 2022 (photo by Joe Fedor)Peregrine falcon (top) chasing bald eagle at Duck Hollow, 29 Jan 2022 (photo by Joe Fedor)
And harassed the gulls on 30 January, captured by Stephen Bucklin.
Peregrine falcon harassing ring-billed gulls at Duck Hollow, 30 Jan 2022 (photo by Stephen Bucklin)Peregrine falcon harassing ring-billed gulls at Duck Hollow, 30 Jan 2022 (photo by Stephen Bucklin)
In both cases we can tell it’s a peregrine because of its sickle shape and pointed wings. In the gull photos it has the same wingspan as the ring-billed gulls.
It’s nice to have photos of the birds that draw attention.
Sunset at Schenley Park golf course, 25 Jan 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
29 January 2022
When the clouds broke up Tuesday afternoon I walked to Schenley Park for a beautiful sunset with a plan to look at the tops of the things.
If I’m lucky, in winter I find as many as three merlins perched at the tops of bare trees half an hour before sunset.
The merlins don’t watch the sky. Instead they focus on potential prey, the small birds that roost in the conifers and bushes between Holes 1, 17 and 18.
On Tuesday I found two merlins: one on a dead snag, the other in the top branches of the tallest tree across the fairway, but he was too hidden for a cellphone photo. (Click on the photo to see a circle around the first merlin.)
Merlin at Schenley Park golf course, 25 Jan 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
While looking at the tops of things, I found a pair of red-tailed hawks on a parking lot light last Saturday, silhouetted against the sky. This was not a very tall pole but the red-tails felt comfortable that no one was paying attention while one of them ate a squirrel.
Red-tailed hawks at CMU Morewood Gardens parking lot, 22 Jan 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
You might find something fun if you Keep Looking Up.
Like their bald eagle relatives, Steller’s sea eagles (Haliaeetus pelagicus) migrate to open water for the winter where they hang out in large groups near abundant fish. The Steller’s sea eagle in Maine is the only one on this continent so we can’t see his behavior among friends and competitors but there is plenty to see in his native range of Far Eastern Russia and northern Japan.
The link below shows tussling between Steller’s sea eagles and a fight with a golden eagle, an unrelated and much smaller bird. It happened at a crater lake in Kamchatka, Russia.
The Steller’s sea eagle in Maine was still near Boothbay Harbor on Tuesday 18 January 2022, as reported by @WanderingSTSE. The bird is 7,000 miles away from his native range and the only member of his species on the continent. What would his life be like if he was at home?
Steller’s sea eagles (Haliaeetus pelagicus) breed in Far Eastern Russia and migrate south for the winter but they don’t leave cold weather behind. One of their favorite winter locations is Hokkaido, Japan where floating ice provides a platform from which to fish. (Blue arrow points to Hokkaido.)
They are joined there by a smaller sea eagle, the white-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla) of Europe, Asia and western Greenland. White-tailed eagles are very similar to their closest relative, the bald eagle. All three are sea eagles in the genus Haliaeetus.
When a bird is extremely rare, very large, nomadic, and easily recognizable it quickly becomes a celebrity. There is only one wild Steller’s sea eagle in North America(*) and wherever he goes birders flock to see him. He lingers sometimes then leaves for parts unknown. Every day the question is, Where is The Steller’s sea eagle?
Meanwhile in Pittsburgh, 300 miles from the nearest ocean, I will probably never see this bird. I can imagine the disappointment and expense of spending a day or two flying or driving to the sea eagle’s last known location and arriving after it had left. Sigh.
Northern saw-whet owl at banding, 26 Oct 2016 (photo by Donna Foyle)
7 January 2022
Northern saw-whet owls (Aegolius acadicus) are so small that they’re held in one hand at banding. Nonetheless they’re fierce predators of small rodents and frightening to songbirds.
The chickadees go nuts when a saw-whet swallows a mouse in this video by Laura @ABBestphotos from Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Timeline cleanser of some raw real #WildlifeWednesday footage from the great white frigid north, my yard, today, again. I have no words to express what an ultimate privilege it has been to be one of the very few members of the #SecretSawWhetSocietypic.twitter.com/NsM70HRyzr
We will never see an Eleonora’s falcon in North America because they nest only on islands in the Mediterranean and off the coast of Tunisia. All of them spend the winter in Madagascar but no one knew how they got there until satellite tracking revealed that some fly through the heart of Africa.
Pittsburgh’s bald eagles will lay eggs in February while in South Carolina it’s already eaglet time. The bald eagle pair on the Hilton Head Land Trust eaglecam hatched their first egg of the season on 26 December 2021 at 12:45pm.
Bald eagles in northern latitudes synchronize their nesting period to hatch in early spring while in southern latitudes, including Florida and the Gulf Coast, they have a prolonged nesting period from late fall to early spring. In the South, bald eagles can afford to nest earlier because there is no winter ice to prevent them from catching fish for their young.
Click here or on the screenshot above to watch the live USS eaglecam feed.
The Irvin bald eagles are the second pair to nest along the Monongahela River in Allegheny County. Their famous eaglecam neighbors, the Hays bald eagles, are 5 miles away as the crow flies and more than 11 miles away if the eagles follow the river route as shown on this map generated by gmap-pedometer.
