West End Nest, Santa Catalina Island - Bald Eagle Cam

Direct NeoKast link for the West End nest:
http://www.neokast.com/StreamPlayerPreview.html?width=360&height=270&streamid=0dfa0f3bcdf711dcb4b70002b3d2f33f

http://www.iws.org/bald_eagles/nestcam.htm
This page has links to the West End nest and other Catalina cams (and the Santa Cruz Island Cam); Catalina cams now use Neokast, so they allow more viewers than last year - but you need to install the Neokast software to view the cams. The cams are solar powered, so the picture may be less than optimal in bad weather.

This nest, established in 1991, is unusual in that it has three adults. The female Dianna (K69) has wing tag on each wing and female Wray (no wing tags,but has a silver leg band) were brought from nests in British Columbia as chicks in 1986 and released together from the Sweetwater Hacktower on Catalina Island. Male K01 (sometimes called "Superman") was hatched at the San Francisco Zoo in 2000 and fostered into the Pinnacle Rock Nest; he replaced the previous male who disappeared before the 2006 nesting season at an age of 25. 18 chicks have fledged from this nest since 1991. Three of the five eggs removed for incubation in 2007 hatched, and the trio successfully raised female K72 ("Earth") and males K73 ("Wind") and K74 ("Fire").

2008 Update: As of mid-March, Dianna has rarely been seen around the nest and there is speculation she may be hoping to form a pair with an unattached male. According to Dr. Sharpe of IWS, Wray and the original male were a pair for a year before Dianna joined them, so she was the junior member of the trio.

Based on past experience, look for eggs in late February and early March, chicks in early April, and fledging from mid-June to early July.

2007-2008 Season:

• eggs laid: first egg possibly March 6; second egg possibly March 9 or 10; third egg laid after eggs removed - possibly March 14
• eggs removed for incubation: March 14 (estimated 6 days old on the 14th - not sure if that's for both or an average)
• egg lost: second egg died Mar 29
• hatched: first egg April 15 (required assistance from IWS staff to hatch - 40 days if date of laying is accurate); third egg April 18 (35 days - first WE egg to hatch naturally; levels of DDE generally much too high at that nest for a natural hatch - Dr. Sharpe estimated the likelihood of a natural hatch at about 5%)
• chick fostered to nest: April 19
• fledged: July 11 (both chicks chased off the nest by a low-flying aircraft shortly after the older had taken its first flight, 84 days for older, 87 day for younger = 12 and 12.5 weeks)
• last seen: older chick's signal picked up on the mainland August 23 (18.5 weeks old); younger chick still exploring the island as of October 29

(Screen cap by birdofprey - "all three feed the new chicks" April 2007)

A note about wing tags: Eagles hatched, fostered or released from hacking towers on Catalina Island have orange wing tags with the letter K and two numbers; the first number is often the year they were hatched - but as there are now more than 10 eaglets per year, the others will get unused numbers from previous years, like K03 at Seal Rocks. Eagles hatched, fostered or released in the northern Channel Islands (including Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa) have powder blue wing tags with the letter A.

The Santa Cruz/Pelican Harbor Cam shared a thread last season with the cams on Santa Catalina Island; this year the Pelican Harbor nest on Santa Cruz Island has its own thread: Santa Cruz Island, California - Bald Eagle Cams

(Information from the Institute for Wildlife Studies)

Link to last year's thread for the Santa Cruz and Catalina Island bald eagle cams

All three of the West End eagles (#01, Wray and Dianna) on the nest today.

Ohhhh, that's exciting. Can't wait for another season. Hope we get to see them better this season. The best I was able to see them, was on the day the eggs were removed and on the day the chicks were returned.

The 2 females have been seen in the nest...not sure who this is....

The male #01, has wing markers visible on only one (I think the left) side, the female Dianna (#69) has wing markers on both wings. The other female Wray does not have wing markers on either wing (but has a silver leg tag). That is the best way to tell them apart, although I have to say I can't always distinguish between the wing markers depending on how clear the cam is.

The West End cam is finally up and running again after being down for a while with technical problems, and there was an eagle briefly on the nest just a little while ago.

Great news - thanks, ostrich! They started laying eggs February 20th last year - the first of the Catalina pairs to do so, though the rest followed fairly quickly. The Pelican Harbor pair on Santa Cruz laid their eggs March 5 and 8 - about two weeks later. So if there's active nest building happening on Santa Cruz - maybe things will be busy here as well!

I don't see a West End thread so I will just post some pics here...01 and one of the females was just in the nest....of course the male 01 was doing his nestorations!

team work and I still can't see what number is on the wingbling of the female....

Duh...just read about this nest and one female has an orange tag with 69 on it and the other female has a silver band...hence this is female 69. Have not seen the other female yet.

HI..What a gr8 video I also watched this trio last year..I was so busy last year with Skye and the other nests,I didn't have time to add my pics..This year hopefully I will..,

VIDEO LINK http://s202.photobucket.com/albums/aa20 ... eb1608.flv

Dianna and K01 nestorating and some love pecks

Some great pics from this cam. Sure hope we can continue to get such great reception for the cam there. It's the most fascinating nest.

Too bad on the WE and PH are Neokast only, that leaves me out. Will have to rely on you guys that watch to keep us updated with pictures and videos!

I think Pelican Harbor/Santa Cruz is still Windows Media Player - at least that worked for me from the IWS site. I'll try to recheck our links here later. I'm also not sure about installing Neokast, though it will allow them to stream more video at a lower cost, I think, so I can see why it's attractive to them.

Does anyone know if there is an address to view the West End nest on a Mac computer?

I don't know of one, Sharon. I've posted the question on the CHIL tech forum, and will post the reply here for anyone else who is interested.

As you can see, I've now started a separate thread for the West End nest. I've also deleted the discussion about starting a new thread - I hope that's OK with everyone. If anyone feels it's important to leave it in, please let me know and I'll put it back (it's in a safe place ). Thanks!

This is perfect Judy...thanks for all your work!

Thanks, soph!

The other half of the original thread is now up - viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2500 - and I'll be splitting off the other nests as they become active (unless someone comes up with a better idea ).

Update on the 4 Catalina cams - they will all use Neokast, which only works on Windows XP and Vista at present. However, according to my friends on the IWS/CHIL forum:

They are apparently working on something for the Macs ... and Dr Sharpe is also looking into an alternative for us ... as Hulabird so lovingly? calls us ... Appleheads!

I've locked the original combined thread, and will probably make it disappear in the next day or two as all the content except the discussion about splitting the posts is now in these two threads.

And thanks, everyone, for your suggestions!

I hope there is lots of coverage here from the folks who can use Neocast. It looks like the pictures are so much better than last year (and I'm not complaining about those at all).

Thanks for keeping any eye out for the Mac info Judy.
PS. An applehead is not such a bad name to be called

I am not an Applehead but one of these I may switch! LOL I will do my best to take s'caps and keep everyone updated but I am not a reliable source to be able to watch all of the time. Plus, Neokast is a decent program and a great concept but if many people are watching with not so updated processors...meaning slow...they suck the life out of my computer since I can offer a lot of power....LOL

K01 stops by for a quiet meal around 4 pm nest time...he is still in the nest by himself at 426 PM..

Wray and K01 together...still have not seen all three at once yet...You can see the size difference in the second pic..

VIDEO

http://s202.photobucket.com/albums/aa20 ... eb1708.flv

K01 having a nice meal all by himself...won;t be long before this will never happen!

Last s'cap of the day and what do I see?????????? Dianna showed up while Wray and K01 were home too!