Calling bird watchers: New ‘EagleCam’ shows ‘intimate lives’ of bald eagles

Bird lovers from around the world can look forward to some feathery reality TV drama – a wildlife camera in Minnesota is about to go live, giving an up-close-and-personal window into the nest of a pair of bald eagles as they navigate daily life and (let’s hope) raise their babies.

Starting Thursday, the camera, known as EagleCam and installed by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, will go live on YouTube and the department’s website – and it’s expected to be popular, given that a previous EagleCam from the department attracted hundreds of thousands of viewers who followed the lives of their favorite eagles, including an eagle pair that became known as “Nancy and Beau.”

The new camera is placed in an undisclosed location where a new eagle pair have nested for at least four years and reared “several broods of eaglets,” according to the department. It will provide viewers with an insight into the “intimate lives of breeding birds, providing a virtual experience in nature,” the department said, adding the stream was expected to show the adult birds court each other while building up their nest, as well as hatching and raising chicks. Organizers hope it will educate the public about wildlife conservation efforts.

Minnesota has one of the largest populations of bald eagles in the United States – although, as the Washington Post previously reported bird flu is threatening the iconic species.

The original EagleCam, which first went live in 2013, became popular, and attracted 341,828 viewers across all 50 states and 127 countries during the 2021–2022 nesting season alone, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

Over the years, the original EagleCam followed “two adult female eagles and a series of male partners” as they nested and produced 15 chicks, the department said. “Nancy and Beau” were fan favorites before the tree branch that their nest rested on collapsed in a snowstorm in April 2023, resulting in the death of their chick. The loss left many viewers devastated, one viewer posting in a group dedicated to the eagle camera that she hadn’t realized “how attached I was to my ‘Eagle’ family” and watching them hunkering down in the winter evenings.

Eagle-loving social media users have been celebrating the news of the new camera online, with one posting that it had “been so long” and another saying that she “so missed the old one.” The original EagleCam will also be turned on, because “Nancy” and “Beau,” who built a new nest nearby, are known to visit the location of their old nest.

But new viewers expecting just pastoral tranquility or heartwarming scenes should be warned: Nature can be violent as well as beautiful. In one incident, an eagle chick pushed its sibling out of the nest, and that bird had to be euthanized, Lori Naumann, the manager of the EagleCam project and a spokeswoman for the department’s Nongame Wildlife Program, said last year.

Once the new camera is turned on, viewers can expect things to be relatively quiet at first since “it’s not really breeding season right now,” Naumann told journalists, according to the Associated Press.

Around mid-November, bald eagles begin to gather large sticks and other material to build their nest in preparation for nesting, breeding and hatching season. This is a “bonding activity” for them, according to the department. As winter progresses, “the pair typically increase their activity at the nest” – what Naumann described as “courtship behavior … ramping up.”

“They actively build the nest together, showing their dedication to each other and their worthiness of being a partner,” Naumann said, according to the AP.

By mid-February, the eagle pairs will typically have up to three eggs, the department said. Both the male and female bald eagles will take part in incubating the eggs, a process that lasts about 35 days. Once the eggs hatch, they will jointly care for their chicks, according to the department.

Last year, Naumann said in a Q&A posted on the department’s website that the idea behind the original EagleCam was “to educate the public about eagles and encourage interest in Minnesota wildlife and conservation efforts.”

The project especially took off during the pandemic, Naumann said, when many people were stuck at home and craving entertainment and a taste of nature. Now, she added, students watch the EagleCam in “classrooms all over the world,” schools “have contests naming the chicks” and the Nongame Wildlife Program receives “letters from elementary schools almost every year.” The camera has also encouraged more people to donate to the program, she said.

“Anything that gets people engaged with birds or gets them to notice birds is a good thing, because that leads to conservation,” Sharon Stiteler, a Minnesota-based birder and writer who goes by Birdchick, previously told The Post. “But sometimes I enjoy the drama that people generate over it more than the drama in the nest.”