Little golden eaglet #2 hatched this morning. Here you can see both chicks at the 3:00 p.m. feeding. Even though they are three days apart, little GE2 was assertively going for food.

The setting sun caught Petra just right tonight. She looks like a Madonna-eagle.

Tonight, Petra sat for a long time seeming to enjoy surveying her domain, when one of the chicks popped up.

Petra then decided to feed the little ones. Needles almost immediately came out of the nest bowl after the food. Feeding was then easy, with one chick in the nest bowl and the other outside beside the prey. But then there was a problem -- Needles, with very full crop, fell over in food coma -- well outside the nest bowl. Petra was in a quandry what to do, and first decided to protect the exposed chick by sitting with her tail on him. Later, she went back to the nest bowl. It was then that Needles figured out he needed to get home and worked his way back to the comfort and safety of the nest bowl.

All is well in the nest this morning, but still there was a discussion about sibling aggression. Janet Zuelke shared this piece of tragic history with chatters:

Janetzuelke: That is the survival of the fittest. We first saw this nest in 2002.That year it was a different pair. They only had one egg/0ne hatch. We named the chick "cliff". At 5 days oldit blew off the nest into alittle pocket of stickson the side. The mamma eagle was only 6 inches away and could not help at all. I kept saying over and over "Just use your dang beak and pick it up by the neck and plop it backinto the nest!" Well, she eventually took food in her beak and tried to shimmy down the side of the nest to feed the little one. Those giant talons were too much to bear for the side of the nest and the whole side of the nest collapsed taking the little one with it. We have the wholehour and a half on videotape. I was inconsolable!!! I swore if they ever came back, I would do something to ward them away as I did not think I could go through that again. Yet, here I am!!!

Thanks for the info R4. This nest is in such an unforgiving place if something goes wrong....still......so awesome to see the GE's in their natural habitat and raising their babies.

I looked in this afternoon and saw this posted in their chat.

Dionne507: Hi ev 1. Is anyone else having trouble seeing this cam? My picture is very blurry. Can hardly see anything?

ForrestdeanB: Dionne507 As the days get longer and the temperture goes up, i have two problems, i cannot control is the irregular air flow from the cameaa to the nest which makes it wavy and blurry. I can refocus everytime the temperture rises a few degrees to keep the camera in focus. The camera does not have an automatic focus so it releys on me and i am not always looking to see if it needs focus. Be patient i will try keeping up on it most of the time.

I got lucky and got to see a feeding here. Both eaglets had full crops and eventually face planted in the nest. They are growing fast.

Here's a pic of Petra and one of the eaglets. Gives a pretty good perspective of size of the eaglet. It's sibling was active in the nest bowl.

Tonight the eaglets began to explore the lava tube at the left side of the nest in the cavern wall. Cool air flows through the tube and the eaglets will enjoy it more and more as the weather turns warmer. Janet explained that they call it the mini-cave. Both eaglets toddled around the nest and seemed to be enjoying each other's company.

GE's are growing like weeds and beginning to get their darker feathers. 1 of the eaglets was almost inside the lava tube where the cool air comes out while the other one was content to lay in the sun while mom watched. There are a lot of videos from last season on Youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/user/beoutsideorg?feature=watch
Good videos from this link are Golden Eagle Nest Chapters 1, 2 and 3.

Rocky's an excellent provider, but he doesn't win them all!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLTzK1j4T-A&feature=youtu.be

It will be a real loss if we're not able to watch these beautiful eagles next year. Janet Zuelke's house (our host) is for sale. This article sheds more light on the situation:

http://www.nuggetnews.com/main.asp?Secti...ArticleID=21021

Priscillash did a good video showing how big our GE babies are now. Thanks Priscilla!