It was a sad day at the National Conservation Training Center located in Shepherdstown, West Virginia on Saturday. After 22 years, the bald eagle’s nest is gone; a sudden windstorm blew the big nest off the top of a huge sycamore tree to the ground. The three eaglets died in the 90 feet fall.
The eaglets were only four-weeks-old. Fortunately the adult eagles appear to be fine and have been spotted flying around the nest tree area; perhaps searching for their young.
Video footage showed the mother eagle (Belle) and her three eaglets hunkering down in the nest when suddenly a huge wind gust struck and the nest was gone. The 75 mph winds were described to be “like a micro burst of some sort.”
The staff found all three eaglets under the tree where they had fallen out of the nest. The nest had been blown apart.
Last fall, the eagles had built a new nest approximately 13 feet lower than their original nest. It was in the same huge sycamore and was placed in a very strong section of the tree which sustained minimal damage during the storm. It is hoped by the NCTC that the eagles will return and use their new nest next season to raise their family. The NCTC had also built a platform for the eagles to use if something happened to their nest, and it is not known if they will return next year.
In the fall of 2003, the original eagle pair built their nest, and the first eggs had been laid in the spring of 2004. The following year the NCTC installed the nest camera and viewers were amazed watching the lives of these magnificent birds of prey.
The cameras have been supported by the Friends of NCTC, the Outdoor Channel, and dedicated citizen scientists the NCTC nest developed a large online following across North America and around the world, including many K-12 school classrooms.
We all look forward to continuing new seasons of life at the NCTC nest and are deeply saddened by the loss of the eaglets.
(Photos by: Deb Stecyk, Paul Kolnik, Dave Smaldone / NCTC Eaglecam)
This was before the storm: (Videos on Facebook Watch can only be viewed by Facebook subscribers. We apologize for the inconvenience, but have posted multiple photos)
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