French Creek Estuary Eagles, Vancouver Island - 2020 - 2021

Camera is offline, but we do get occasional updates for the French Creek Estuary nest on Vancouver Island, BC, from local observers

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French Creek Estuary Eagles, Vancouver Island - 2020 - 2021

Post by gemini » Thu Oct 22, 2020 12:09 am

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The French Creek Discussion Forum

Welcome to the 2020-2021 Eagle Nesting Season

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This Nest is in the Pacific Time Zone

Thanks to French Creek House Ltd. for funding the installation of this webcam.
Thanks to Shaw Cable Nanaimo for supporting the outbound bandwidth.

This forum is for Discussion, Observations, Photos & Videos related to events/occurrences of the French Creek Estuary Eagle Nest located on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Please join us as we follow the progress of the French Creek Estuary Eagles and share your Observations, Photos & Videos . You can join the forum to post by clicking the "Register" button in the upper right corner.

There are lots of helpful hints about how the forum works here - HELPFUL HINTS and an Index to help you navigate the forum here - FORUM SITEMAP. If you have questions - please ask - and WELCOME!


The French Creek Estuary Eagles Nest

French Creek is located on the east coast of Vancouver Island, halfway between Parksville and Qualicum Beach. French Creek, a community watershed, supports a large population of coho and chum salmon, steelhead, cutthroat trout, migratory birds and other diverse wildlife. It is an ideal habitat for eagles to nest and raise their young.

Cam view of the French Creek nest
10-23-2020  3-56 pm.jpg


Another Cam view from the nest
10-21-2020  6-08 pm.jpg


Map of French Creek area
Map of French Creek.jpg
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Re: French Creek Estuary Eagles, Vancouver Island - 2020-2021

Post by gemini » Thu Oct 22, 2020 12:12 am

2020-2021 Season Notable Dates:

Cam On: October 23, 2020

Adults returned: unknown - probably before the cam was streaming

Adult seen on nest: October 26, 2020, 4:56 pm; two adults seen together (not on nest): October 28, 3:36 pm

New nest reported: November 3 - David Hancock reported the eagles have built a nest 650 feet away, and are now being called the Marina pair.

Sad News re Marina eagles: May 11 - the nest has failed and the male may have died in late March.

Eggs laid:

Pip seen:

Eggs hatched:

Eaglets named:

First branched:

Fledged:

Eaglets last seen:

Adults last seen:
- - both - July 24, 4:55 am
- - one - August 2, 8:54 am


Useful Links:

French Creek Nest History in Brief
2021-22 Discussion Forum
2020-2021 Video Library
Other HWF Cams
Hancock Wildlife forum member's DICTION-AERIE
French Creek Weather Now



Nest Adoptions for 2020/2021 are now available!

In the 2021 nesting season (September 2020-August 2021) this nest has been adopted by:

~ The very generous ongoing support from Jane McLennan on behalf of her grand-children Tamsyn, Lucille, Finola, Hanna and her great-grand-children Ivy, Winter and Winona ~


Previous Year's Adoptions

2013 - 2020

You too can honor your favorite fine feathered family
and support the work of Hancock Wildlife by adopting the
HWF nest of your choice.

Click HERE to see how!
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Re: French Creek Estuary Eagles, Vancouver Island - 2020-2021

Post by gemini » Thu Oct 22, 2020 12:33 am

IDing The Eagles:

Scaps coming as soon as we have something!!
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Re: French Creek Estuary Eagles, Vancouver Island - 2020-2021

Post by gemini » Thu Oct 22, 2020 12:35 am

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What Happened in the 2019/2020 Season:

Mom and Dad French Creek successfully fledged two eaglets.

:vid: Dad feeding his two eaglets (:30)

May 10, 2020 - All done!
5-10-2020 French Creek Dad feeding his two youngsters.jpg

May 10, 2020 - Feeding over, Dad leaves!
5-10-2020  Dad French Creek leaving the nest.jpg

Video and photos thanks to:
Denise Foster, chair
Save Estuary Land Society
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Re: French Creek Estuary Eagles, Vancouver Island - 2020-2021

Post by gemini » Thu Oct 22, 2020 12:36 am

David Hancock has received a number of videos of the French Creek eagles from last season and of local happenings that relate to the eagles or their territory area which he wants posted somewhere on the forum. So in anticipation of receiving more - here is our new French Creek Video Library.

French Creek Video Library 2020-2021
**Videos thanks to: Denise Foster, Chair, Save Estuary Land Society

Video Title, Date Video Recorded/ Posted

Hoorah! An eagle visits the new HWF nest build at French Creek! - Oct 26, 2020
The three visits from earlier today reported by JudyB. - Oct 27, 2020
Oh No! How embarrassing! I hope nobody saw that! French Creek - Oct 28, 2020
**French Creek Dad feeds two eaglets - Nov 3, 2020
**Hali Enjoying Dad's Favorite Perch Tree - Nov 11, 2020
**Marital Spat - Nov 11, 2020
An Eagle Explores the Nest at French Creek - Nov 11, 2020
**French Creek eagle pair pass on the "pre-built" and do their own thing! - Nov 11, 2020
**Honey we need to Talk - Dec 29, 2020
**Hali By the Creek - Jan 3, 2021
**Female Bald Eagle perched at creek - Jan 15, 2021
**Eagle eating fish - Jan 15, 2021
**Hali parachutes - Jan 15, 2021
**Poop on sibling - Jan 15, 2021
**Preening in nest - Jan 15, 2021
**Yoga pose - Jan 15, 2021
A busy day in the life of Mr and Mrs FC - Jan 23,2021
**Eagles galore! - Jan 23,2021
Who's at French Creek - by BillA - 2/8/2021
**Moon With Eagles - Feb 15, 2021
**Juvenile at French Creek Estuary - Feb 7, 2021
**Beautiful Immature at French Creek Estuary Land - Feb 1, 2021
**Mating? Nope! - Feb 1, 2021
**Serenity at French Creek - Feb 15, 2021
**Dalmation male defends nest - Feb 15, 2021
**Immature on French Creek pair's favourite perch - Feb 1, 2021
**Ten eagles plus fly ins - Posted Apr 16, 2021
**Lots of calling - Posted Apr 16, 2021
**Adult eagle, shore, rocks - Posted Apr 16, 2021
**Oopsie Daisy - Posted Apr 16, 2021
**Mom eats gull or duck - Posted Apr 16, 2021
**Immature watches the Herring spawn - Posted Apr 19, 2021
An eagle pair check out the French Creek nest! - May 9, 2021
Two more visits - one at 11:46 am and the second at 12:50 pm - May 9, 2021
Busy, Busy Busy!! - May 09, 2021
And the FC nest continues to receive visitors - looking good for next year! - May12, 2021
A second visit today! - May12, 2021
Bringing in the sticks at French Creek, part 1 - May 14, 2021
Bringing in the sticks at French Creek, part 2 (With a visitor of a different kind) - May 14, 2021
Yet another stick for the FC nest! - May 14, 2021
Checking the nest before retiring for the night - May 14, 2021
Eagle brings their meal to the nest to eat in peace - May 16, 2021
Putting their house in order! - May 16, 2021
Eagle steals a stick from the French Creek nest! - May 19, 2021
Zooming the French Creek nest and more! - May 19, 2021
One last check before bed! - May 19, 2021
An evening visit from one of the visiting eagles - May 22, 2021
Eagle Adds Straw to French Creek Nest - May 23, 2021
Highlights of today's visit to the FC nest - May 24, 2021
Eagles with Stick - May 28, 2021
Active Discussion! - May 28, 2021
Closeups - May 28, 2021
Closeups 2 - May 28, 2021
Closeups 3 - focus on other eagle - May 28, 2021
Closeups 4 - more on 2nd eagle - May 28, 2021
Afternoon Visit - May 28, 2021
Twilight Visit - May 31, 2021
Quick visit - May 31, 221
Upset visitor at French Creek nest - June 5, 2021
Eagle at French Creek, with Cameo by a Crow - June 12, 2021
**Adult stays cool while eagles call! - Jun 24, 2021
Closer Look at Today's Visitor - July 16, 2021
Two visits to the French Creek nest - July 20, 2021


French Creek Nest territory Related Videos-

Building The First Eagle Preserve on Vancouver Island - Nov 25,2020
**Eagles, mountains, herring - Jan 15, 2021 - Read related article by David Hancock HERE
**Eagles on the shore eating clams! - Read article re Jan 11, 2020 Horse Clam Event by Denise Foster & Peter Geisen HERE
**Immature eats, adult tries to steal!
**Close up of immature eating clam!
**Immature, spawn, backdrop - Jan 15, 2021
**Sealions, eagles, seagulls and Herring spawn - Jan 15, 2021
**Sperm, shore, milt, boots - Jan 15, 2021
**Pacific Tree Frogs - Posted Apr 16, 2021
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Re: French Creek Estuary Eagles, Vancouver Island - 2020-2021

Post by gemini » Thu Oct 22, 2020 12:36 am

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Re: French Creek Estuary Eagles, Vancouver Island - 2020-2021

Post by gemini » Thu Oct 22, 2020 12:36 am

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The French Creek Bald Eagle Preserve

The French Creek Bald Eagle Preserve -a wonderful community project that the Hancock Wildlife Foundation has been supporting.

Their legacy initiative is to create the 1st Bald Eagle Preserve on Vancouver Island to protect 23 acres of vital habitat for eagles and wildlife. Several groups are working together including The Save Estuary Land Society and Friends of French Creek Conservation Society, Nanaimo and Area Land Trust, Mount Arrowsmith Biosphere Regional Research Institute, Vancouver Island University, Arrowsmith Naturalists and Mid-Vancouver Island Habitat Enhancement society. A special thanks to the generous property owner, French Creek House Ltd., who is poised to gift over 12 acres of their land to the Eagle Preserve and who funded the artificial nest and webcam.

I recommend viewing this brief video as it says it all - “IF YOU CARE, YOU CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN!” The eagles are brought back.

The opening scenes show the foundational sticks being sent up the tree by the Save French Creek Estuary Land Society volunteers. At the top of the tree is Myles Lamont, our HWF chief climbing biologist, fixing these branches into the intricate web of a bald eagle nest. This nest is the community effort, supported by our Foundation recommendations of a tree, to again build an eagles nest. Like in many such nests we build, it was so rewarding to see the eagles take charge and complete this nest for a productive new season.

The rest of the video shows why the community got behind saving this French Creek Estuary - its incredibly rich flora and fauna. Do you have otters, beavers, an annual migration of thousands of black brant and a myriad of migrant birds in your back yard?

This is an awesome community driven video. I want to specifically thank Denise Foster for coordinating this complex multi-year project and for rallying all the various organizations in the regions to help conserve this estuary treasure. Their team is fundraising toward the purchase of the remaining 5 acres of land to complete the 23-acre Eagle Preserve and they could use your help so please contribute. See https://www.saveestuarylandsociety.ca/


SPECIAL NOTE: See the Joyce Butler $20,000 matching grant. Sometimes your past delivers wonderfully warm and fuzzy returns – in this case 70 years later. Joyce Butler, her husband Tom and his brother Claude Butler were our neighbours in the late 1940’s thru my graduation in 1957. From age 12 onward I worked in their gravel-cement pit and hardware stores. Here Tom took my enthusiasm to learn to drive to heart. By 13 I was driving all the trucks, cement mixers, front end loaders and excavators. I also got full adult wages as I undertook each afternoon after school the exhilarating fun of excavating a blasting hole into the gravel cliffs, loading it with dynamite to bring down the next days fresh gravel. At 13 I was a powder monkey! By 15 I had spent so many hours in their airplane volunteering to help clear new little private airports throughout BC that I took formal lessons, put in the training hours so I got a pilots license on my 16th birthday.

What Joyce and family did not know till now is that in the summer when I was just 15, Claude brought into the truck fleet the newest fanciest huge truck, a General Motors Hydromatic, that carried the biggest cement mixer the fleet had. All the truck drivers were lined up and Claude chose me to be the driver. All the drivers took that to be an honor! They had been watching me drive – and fly - for years so it never occurred to them, or me to tell them, that I was still a year away from getting a drivers license or my pilots license. Needless to say my years of working for the Butler family were wrapped in wonderful memories, opportunities and adventures. Not the least was that, in spite of my father having just had a serious accident in 1948 and not able to work as Foreman of the Vancouver Island Dairy and going through bankruptcy (there was no workmans compensation in those days!), I was able to save enough money that on high school graduation week I purchased a car, an airplane and the best ‘semi-professional’ movie camera. The balance of my adventures is a better-known-story. Joyce – I hope you’re not disappointed in this revelation! And thanks to your family I had the opportunity of a wonderful start in my adult life. I am often asked why I believe more in community responsibility than individual rights. Perhaps that is not quite right but I believe rights only flow from personal responsibility. I am always leary of someone proclaiming a right. Have they earned it? This is rooted in growing up where our neighbors, from the day dad and I moved into the little windblown farm house, rented for $50 per month, with no electricity or running water, with mom and my day old brother arriving the next day, saw to it that we never went hungry or wanting. But this Butler episode, our second closest neighbour, is a brief introduction to that wonderful stage of growing up. Thanks Joyce.

This video “Vancouver Islands 1st Bald Eagle Preserve at French Creek Estuary”is on Youtube at:Intro to French Creek Estuary Land

THANKS

David Hancock
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Re: French Creek Estuary Eagles, Vancouver Island - 2020-2021

Post by gemini » Thu Oct 22, 2020 12:37 am

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French Creek Nest History in Brief

2019 Season: Mr and Mrs French Creek raised one eaglet to fledge. The eaglet was named Frankie (female)

2020 Season: The eagles successfully raised two eaglets this year They were named Hali (female) and Leu (male) (This was short for Haliaeetus leucocephalus.)

2021 Season: An artificial nest and camera were installed in the newly created French Creek Bald Eagle Preserve which encompasses part of the French Creek Estuary with its incredibly rich flora and fauna. This nest is the community effort, supported by the Hancock Wildlife Foundation recommendations of a tree, to again build an eagles nest. The hope was to entice the pair that occupies this territory to call the new nest home. Like in many such nests built by the HWF, it was rewarding to see the eagles take charge and complete the nest. However, though they visited often adding sticks to the nest they had other ideas as to where they wanted to raise their young and opted to use another build of their own closer to the Marina. Unfortunately, just before egg laying time there was some tree clearing happening nearby and likely due to the disturbance and noise level so close to their nest, they did not produce any young this year. We hope to see them back for the 2022 season - at the nest with the camera!
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Re: French Creek Estuary Eagles, Vancouver Island - 2020-2021

Post by JudyB » Fri Oct 23, 2020 3:36 pm

Friday, October 23, 2020

We still have a lot of loose ends to pull together here - but the cam is streaming!
20201023_004.jpg

We have not yet seen any eagles - and are hoping they will stop by soon.

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Re: French Creek Estuary Eagles, Vancouver Island - 2020-2021

Post by sassyk » Fri Oct 23, 2020 10:39 pm

I am very excited and looking forward to watching this new eagle nest :) Many thanks to David and his crew and the folks at French Creek House Ltd. for making this available to us :rh:
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Volunteer Nest Monitor for Wildlife Tree Stewardship Program (WiTS)
If you find a new nest, please contact me so it can be added to the WiTS mapping program.

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Re: French Creek Estuary Eagles, Vancouver Island - 2020-2021

Post by Sandy_W » Sat Oct 24, 2020 6:47 am

This morning, I just discovered this listing for a cam at the French Creek Estuary. Loved the video with David as can see his excitement for the future of this eagle nest! I am looking forward to see the eagles make their way to their new 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

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Re: French Creek Estuary Eagles, Vancouver Island - 2020-2021

Post by JudyB » Sat Oct 24, 2020 7:45 am

Saturday, October 24, 2020

Great to see you here, Kay and Sandy!

Someone is zooming this morning - probably David Hancock. Looks lovely - but quite windy.
20201024_009.jpg

I did not see any birds or boats as the cam looked around.


7:43 am
Cam is looking over the water, and I've seen a couple of birds fly by - one white and one dark. And one of the white spots is a bird, but I can't tell which one.
20201024_010.jpg

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Re: French Creek Estuary Eagles, Vancouver Island - 2020-2021

Post by Jean » Sat Oct 24, 2020 1:26 pm

:bravo: Congratulations on the new cam..........more eagles to watch! And French Creek is a lovely area. Thanks David and all for your hard work and dedication! Fabulous interview David......I always learn something new when you speak!
"Volunteers do not necessarily have the time..............they have the heart"..........Elizabeth Andrew

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Re: French Creek Estuary Eagles, Vancouver Island - 2020-2021

Post by JudyB » Sat Oct 24, 2020 2:21 pm

Thanks for stopping by, Jean! Where this is a bit further north, I have no idea what schedule these eagles might be on. With luck we'll find out before too long.

2:17 pm
I checked the dvr back to my last post and didn't see any eagles.

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Re: French Creek Estuary Eagles, Vancouver Island - 2020-2021

Post by JudyB » Sun Oct 25, 2020 8:40 am

Sunday, October 25, 2020

Good morning, everyone!

8:40 am
I checked the dvr (and did that a few times yesterday, though didn't always post) - and so far have not seen anyone at the nest except a squirrel once or twice.

Some pairs do seem to spend more time at the nest in the fall than others, and I know some seem to go off for weeks at a time in the off season - and I hope we'll see someone here before too long.

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