We were very fortunate on June 28th as we watched the 2nd eaglet fledge from the nest, and not accidentally like its sibling. Both of the eaglets were in the nest today, and according to the folks that had been there through the day, the new fledgling had been taking off and circling and coming back to the nest.
Around 3:45 or so yesterday, the fledgling took off, flew to the north and didn’t return. The remaining eaglet started branching, jumping back and forth, climbing high on one of the branches, just itching to go.
Sure enough around 4:00 o’clock it started flapping and just kept lifting itself up and over the nest and then gracefully took flight over the nest to the southeast. The featured image is a composite of the first part of its maiden flight.
It made one circle, looked like it was going to come back to the nest, and then turned back to the cottonwood where it appeared to miss a landing on one of the branches and kept flapping and finally wound up in the tree in the far SE corner, and not a graceful landing by any stretch.
We walked down to take a look, and it was clinging to the side of the tree with its talons, and then eventually flapped and secured itself on a branch. Then it perched there and gathered itself and then pondered on how to navigate its way out and back to the nest.
Below is a gallery of the series showing the eaglet first branching, and then taking flight. The 3 images in the tree is of the fledgling after it had “crashed landed” and was orienting itself.
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