Old Golf Course Nest - LE091 - Cape Coral FL 2019 - 2020 - 2021
Moderator: N Amer Eagle Cam TA's
Old Golf Course Nest - LE091 - Cape Coral FL 2019 - 2020 - 2021
This is a new topic for one of the two nests I am monitoring in Cape Coral, FL. I began watching this nest back in October, 2019, and saw the two adults around the area and had seen one of them seeming to be incubating an egg or eggs back in December, but recently had not seen evidence of any chicks hatching......until today. I've decided to set this topic up since I am now able to see the one eaglet....that's all I think they have as I did not see another head pop up in the last couple of weeks and I had really never seen any fluffy white heads. I guess I wasn't lucky enough to be around the nest when they were up, or the nest is deeper than it appears to me.
Here is a map showing where the nest is. This Golf Course nest is the asterisk in Blue. The red asterisk is the Caloosa school nest, and the green asterisk is the SWFL (Harriet & M15) nest, just showing these as a reference. All three nests are within 1/4 mile of the Caloosahatchee River, and both this nest and the Caloosa School nest have fresh water canals right nearby. This Golf Course nest also has a pond within a few hundred yards of the nest. This nest is built on a platform to what I like to call a Power Tower (cell tower)....not sure if someone put this platform here just for the eagles, but I've seen other similar towers in the area that do not have this platform so not sure why this one does. This is the top portion of the tower where we had seen one of the adults perched...hard to see but they are there
Here is a map showing where the nest is. This Golf Course nest is the asterisk in Blue. The red asterisk is the Caloosa school nest, and the green asterisk is the SWFL (Harriet & M15) nest, just showing these as a reference. All three nests are within 1/4 mile of the Caloosahatchee River, and both this nest and the Caloosa School nest have fresh water canals right nearby. This Golf Course nest also has a pond within a few hundred yards of the nest. This nest is built on a platform to what I like to call a Power Tower (cell tower)....not sure if someone put this platform here just for the eagles, but I've seen other similar towers in the area that do not have this platform so not sure why this one does. This is the top portion of the tower where we had seen one of the adults perched...hard to see but they are there
Re: Old Golf Course Nest - LE091 - Cape Coral FL 2019 - 2020
2/2/2020 - We had stopped at the nest on Sunday and had seen an adult on the nest...and I thought I saw movement to the left but wasn't able to get a good look to confirm it was an eaglet at that time
This was the day that we saw the adult up on top of the tower and it looked like a young eagle had flown by and the adult flew off. At that time the adult was not on the nest platform but then all of a sudden, when our eyes were off the nest, the adult appeared....so not sure if it was the same adult or not.
Re: Old Golf Course Nest - LE091 - Cape Coral FL 2019 - 2020
2/4/2020 - because I wasn't satisfied with our visit on Sunday I decided to go back again on Tuesday. When we first got there, no adults were around, but something moved on the nest so we stayed around for a bit and finally an adult came to the nest...and up popped an eaglet!
Here's a picture pointing out the nest platform, and the adult and eaglet up top....adult is on the left, and the little thing on the right is the eaglet. And the eaglet flapping their wings
Here's a short video from yesterday which shows when the eaglet was doing its wingers.....sorry for all the talking but this is my way to know when things happen in the video....or I just get excited about seeing them, lol.
Old Golf Course - One Eaglet
Here's a picture pointing out the nest platform, and the adult and eaglet up top....adult is on the left, and the little thing on the right is the eaglet. And the eaglet flapping their wings
Here's a short video from yesterday which shows when the eaglet was doing its wingers.....sorry for all the talking but this is my way to know when things happen in the video....or I just get excited about seeing them, lol.
Old Golf Course - One Eaglet
Re: Old Golf Course Nest - LE091 - Cape Coral FL 2019 - 2020
Wow - what big wings! Great job spotting the little one, Sue!
2023 Eaglet Info ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Helpful Hints
Re: Old Golf Course Nest - LE091 - Cape Coral FL 2019 - 2020
My goodness, Sue. Interesting the adults chose this small platform for their nest. Wonderful to see an eaglet in the nest.
“Eagles: When they walk, they stumble. They are not what one would call graceful. They were not designed to walk. They fly. And when they fly, oh, how they fly, so free, so graceful. They see from the sky what we never see.” – Unknown
Re: Old Golf Course Nest - LE091 - Cape Coral FL 2019 - 2020
Thanks Sandy! I haven't been able to get any good pictures the last couple of weeks but yesterday did see the eaglet....I actually missed it at first because one of the adults was sitting at the nest and the eaglet was sitting right in front of them. This nest is a distance even with the binoculars that I have, which are pretty good, but was hard to distinguish there were two there. Finally was able to tell and actually rode around the neighborhood to another side to confirm that yes, the eaglet was still there....a little shorter than the adult so still very young.
Re: Old Golf Course Nest - LE091 - Cape Coral FL 2019 - 2020
3/8/2020 - it's been a little while since I have been able to get pictures at this nest....the eaglet did not seem to want to come out and play. Today we saw both adults were up on the tower but did not see the eaglet. We stayed for a good amount of time thinking, well maybe he flew off, at least hoping that because thinking s/he didn't make it was not a good thought. So after about 20 minutes or so we were making our way away from the tower, heading back to the car and I looked up and thought I saw something on the nest that was not there before, so we waited......and waited....and finally the eaglet started doing stretches and finally stood up and then did some wingers. So so happy to see he was healthy and energetic! So with that here are some pictures.....first of the adults as they were the first we had seen when we got to the nest.....they were both above the nest up on the tower, but not together. Sorry but I forgot to get a picture of the entire tower showing where the adults were in comparison to the nest platform and eaglet. The adults were toward the top of the tower. Using my new camera I was able to get some good shots of them.
Re: Old Golf Course Nest - LE091 - Cape Coral FL 2019 - 2020
3/8/2020 - and now some of the eaglet as he was doing some good wingers and dancing around. Posting lots of them as this is the first time I have been able to get some good shots and s/he was having such a good ole time and getting some air.
Re: Old Golf Course Nest - LE091 - Cape Coral FL 2019 - 2020
3/8/2020 - here's the dancing shot....at least I want to think s/he was dancing....have a good time
And then s/he got some really good air under its feet
Re: Old Golf Course Nest - LE091 - Cape Coral FL 2019 - 2020
3/8/2020 - and my last one of the eaglet
Then, one of the adults had flown off the tower and thought they headed toward the nearby pond....was hoping they would come back with a fish while we were there but we waited a while and they had not come back before we left.
Re: Old Golf Course Nest - LE091 - Cape Coral FL 2019 - 2020
3/8/2020 - these last three are of the adult flying away from the tower
Re: Old Golf Course Nest - LE091 - Cape Coral FL 2019 - 2020
3/20/2020 - We visited the nest on this date, Friday. Normally we go on Sunday's to visit our local nests due to school restrictions at one of them, but since there is no school in session right now we can go any time we want. Today I remembered to get a full shot of the tower....what was good was there was an adult up top and the eaglet was on their nesting platform, way down below.
A couple pictures of the adult up top
Re: Old Golf Course Nest - LE091 - Cape Coral FL 2019 - 2020
3/20/2020 - one more of the adult as s/he was doing some preening
And now the eaglet....s/he didn't do a whole lot but they were perched on the very edge of the nesting platform and had done some stretches or small wingers to keep their balance on that edge....so brave!
Re: Old Golf Course Nest - LE091 - Cape Coral FL 2019 - 2020
3/20/2020 - one more of the eaglet as they were balance up there
Then the adult surprised me and flew off....I only got a few shots of them flying...one was a little blurry but have two here to share
And the eaglet watched as their parent flew away, heading to the West. I don't think this eaglet has fledged just yet, so I may just have to keep going back a little more frequently so maybe I will be there when it happens.
Re: Old Golf Course Nest - LE091 - Cape Coral FL 2019 - 2020
3/20/2020 - I wanted to post another s'cap of the area to show how much area the eagles have to search for food. The town of Cape Coral has over 400 miles of canals, both fresh and saltwater, this is more than in Venice, Italy. If you google cities with the most canals, Cape Coral, FL is listed there....of course it may not be as pretty as some of the other worldly canals but it still is a nice place to be, especially for the eagles, osprey, and other fish loving birds that live here. This map only shows a very small portion of the city (our city is over 100 square miles) but shows how much this particular eagle family has to choose from. The nest is marked in Red. The Blue mark is a small pond on the golf course and this is where I saw the one adult fly to a couple/few weeks ago. Yesterday, the adult flew to the West, and probably went to the small lake marked in Pink. One other area that is not far from this nest is the Caloosahatchee River, to the East of the nest, which is marked in Green. So this family of eagles has plenty of area to quickly find food for their growing eaglet.