Libby Dam, Montana - Bald Eagle Cam

US Army Corps of Engineers Libby Dam Eagle Cam site
Direct link to cam >> http://www.nws.usace.army.mil/publicmenu/DOCUMENTS/libby/eaglecam_refresh.html
There is also a website with hourly shots from the preceding 24 hours at http://www.libbymt.com/webcam/libbydameaglecam.htm
The camera has still shots updating every 10 seconds.

Libby Dam is located on the on the Kootenai River in northwestern Montana. The nest, also known as the Souse Gulch Eagle Nest, was established in 1996, with the first eggs in 1997. Since then, the pair has fledged 21 eaglets, including two in 2008.

Based on past experience, look for eggs in mid to late March, chicks in late April, and fledging in mid July.

2008-2009 Season:

• cam back: February 18; both adults seen at the nest
• eggs laid: March 16, 6:25 pm; March 20, 4:50 pm
• hatched: seen April 24, 7:20 am (39 days); April 26, 10:24 am
• sad news: the younger eaglet died May 16 (age 20 days); no apparent reason though it's hard to tell how well each is fed with a refresh cam
• bledged: July 11 (78 days)
• last seen: August 10 (108 days)

(Information from US Army Corps of Engineers Libby Dam Eagle Cam site)

Link to last year's thread for the Libby Dam Bald Eagle Cam

Back up and running
http://www.nws.usace.army.mil/publicmen ... fresh.html

Thanks for the picture, kittenface!

I'd e-mailed Ranger Mark a while back asking about the cam, and today got the reply I'd been hoping for:

I really enjoyed watching these eagles last year, and am so glad they found a way to have the cam back for another year!

Thanks this looks like another nice cam!!

What a difference a day makes - the first four pictures are from yesterday, March 7:



And here's what the nest looks like today:

Quite beautiful - and I'm very glad that it's likely to be another week or two before this pair lays their first egg!

Amazing weather...ole man winter not done yet I am afraid; speaking like a true northern Judy

Someones home

I think there just might be an egg! I tuned in this morning to see Mom curled up contentedly in a snow-covered nest. Since I've been watching, she stood up once (neatly blocking my view of the nest bowl), reached down and adjusted something (hard to tell what exactly with a refresh cam, but the angle looked like it could be an egg roll), and settled back down, facing in a different direction.

Added:
Dad brought her a snack, and when she got up - I saw an egg! Pictures tonight if it's not too late when I get home.

Edited to add pictures:

And now there are two!

Edited to add pictures:

Libby, MT - First egg, 16 Mar 2009.

Welcome to the forum, CAL04 - and thanks so much for the picture of the first egg at Libby Dam! I'd only been checking the cam every couple of days, so didn't see it until the following morning. I've changed the initial post to move the time of the first egg back to the evening of March 16.

It does look like a pretty area where the cam is located, and I enjoy watching the nest from time to time, perhaps because the pace is a little slower with the refresh cam than it is on nests with streaming cams.

Thank you JudyB. I enjoy this site very much.

Since I had not seen both "Mom & Dad" together at the nest in Libby after the first egg was laid, I was thrilled to see your camshot of them on March 17th!

Yes, Libby, MT, is a beautiful area nestled in the Cabinet Mountain Range on the Kootenai River or "The River Wild" of movie fame. I try to go back for a visit at least once a year.

Now I'm getting a bit concerned, CAL04. The parent on the nest seems content - but I was watching on and off most of the day yesterday, and have been watching for a couple of hours so far today, and I haven't actually seen a swap or seen both parents at once.

I have seen a parent leave the nest for a minute or two, and a parent arrive and start incubating - and that could be an exchange. I really haven't found any way to tell the adults apart when only one is present. I'm sure it's OK - I know from other nests that the eggs are OK for a while on their own, and am sure the parent would have been gone long enough to find food if they weren't change places now and then. But it is a change from some of the other nests I watch.

You share my concern then, JudyB.

I have read that if one parent goes missing it usually does not take long for the eagle to attract another partner. From what I "think" that I saw yesterday, this parent is going to need help. Hard to make out from the cam but I think I saw 3 maybe 4 eggs in the nest. Time will tell.

I haven't seen more than two eggs, though some could be partly hidden. And looking at the history of the nest on the Libby Dam site, it doesn't seem that they've ever had three chicks. But there's a first time for everything.

I know that this cam sometimes takes more than a minute to refresh - and I've seen exchanges in less than a minute on other nests - so they could be trading places every 20 minutes for all I know. But I doubt it. I do think it's quite likely that when I've seen one take off for a couple of minutes, it may well be that the other comes in. And I'm quite certain if the nesting eagle had been there for over a day without relief, we'd see her(?) calling - and I haven't seen that happen. I'd also expect that by now she would have covered the eggs and left them for a half hour or so and tried to find food. I also haven't seen that happen. So I think there are still two parents here.

But it would be nice to have a visual confirmation!

Two adults on the nest! Only there for two refreshes. I have pics! Hooray!

Yes!

Here are my pictures from earlier today - a couple showing the two eggs that I've seen, and a couple with both adults in the nest. You'll notice that the last two pictures are only 10 seconds apart, and one of the adults is already leaving - no wonder we're having so much trouble seeing them both there at once!

Wow - Thanks. Clearly two eggs in the nest. Gracious, ten seconds is not a lot of time to capture a view of both - JudyB, you are fast!

A few minutes ago I saw one eagle take-off and then the other landed within the minute. Did not get to see both on nest together. Either they are doing precision work or they are just trying to fool us.

Nice pictures, CAL04! I have wondered if they're doing a switch when one leaves for 30 seconds. Unfortunately from that distance I really haven't a clue who is who, so don't know if it's the same one returning or the other one coming in.

Well I know; you really cannot be certain if it is the same one or not. I need to mention that twice now I have watched the nest go un-incubated for 20 minutes straight but that was when there was only one egg.

Question for JudyB: How are you getting pics in the body of your post and side by side vice as attachments like mine? I want to learn to line mine up in the body of the reply like you have your photos posted.

Mine aren't attachments. I have an account at PhotoBucket where I upload them, then paste the image code into the thread. Unfortunately it's getting late here so I don't have time to explain in more detail tonight. There are some good discussions of how to do that in the Technical Help area - viewforum.php?f=93 - and if you look in the practice area there, you'll see various people helping each other with similar issues - which might help you! If you haven't figured it all out by tomorrow night, I'll see if I can help! G'night!

Thanks much JudyB Hope you got some good 's.

I've noticed an interesting thing about your pictures, CAL04. If you look at the properties of the two you pasted in, you'll see that they are identical. What you've pasted in is the URL for the most recent picture posted on the Libby Dam cam site, so it updates every time the post a new picture. Which is great if you want to see what's happening there without opening the cam - but I'm afraid it won't tell you what was happening at the time you copied the pictures.

When you did your attachment picture, I'm guessing you did a screenshot and saved the picture somewhere on your computer. There's an optional middle step where you might do some cropping or editing, depending how you captured the picture. Then you click the Post Reply button here and browse on your computer to find the picture, then upload it to the forum - so the screenshot you took is stored on the forum.

With PhotoBucket, you do the same general thing. You take a screenshot and save it to your computer. You edit it if you want. You open another browser window, go to PhotoBucket, log into your account (go to the page for Libby Dam pics if you made subfolders for different nests) and upload the picture to PhotoBucket. Once the picture has uploaded, there's code underneath the picture that you can copy (already including the IMG tags) - and then you paste that into your post, and when I (or anyone) looks at your post, we see the picture. I don't mean to dwell on PhotoBucket - but it's the one I know how to use. SharonFeeney has a tutorial in the Technical Support area, but I suspect some of the screenshots are a bit out of date. The general concept is probably similar.

And we should probably be having this discussion in the Pic Practice area - but this isn't a very busy thread right now, so I think we can continue to discuss it here for now, and then I can either delete it or move it to the Pic Practice thread once we're done.

And, by the way, the nest is really quite lovely with the snow on it - and I guess I'd rather see snow now than later when there are little eaglets to try to keep warm!

I appreciate your help JudyB. I am going to delete my tech question from this thread now. Thanks again.