Alcoa Davenport's Bald Eagle Nest

A Dreary Week Ahead?

The local forecast is for a chance of rain every day this week. Hopefully we will not have any severe weather as part of this series of gloomy days. Very exciting this morning to say happy six-week birthday to Faith. She is already up this morning and working to feed herself by holding down part of a fish and tearing pieces off on her own.

To answer a question posted over the weekend, we currently plan to leave the camera on year-round. Liberty and Justice live in the QC all year. Even when they are not using the nest much in August & September, they still stop by once in a while to eat a fish.

A Calmer Day Today?

It looks like we may be cloudy most of the day, but perhaps a little less windy. The week ahead has at least a chance for some rain through most of the week.

We have now passed the seven-million hit mark on this site for the year. Lots of people are watching and that is great. Lots of people are posting commnets on what they see and how it makes them feel. That is great too. This is not a moderated chat. Some of the regular posters have struck up conversations with each other and that is fine, but keep in mind you should never share personal information with people you do not really know online.

Have a great Sunday!

A Windy Weekend

Happy five-week birthday today to our youngest eaglet, Spirit. It looks like today will be cool and windy. Radar shows most of the rain has moved through, but I guess we could get a few more drops later. Lets just hope none of the eaglets do too much messing around with spreading their wings today...best if everyone stays low until the winds die down.

Ready for the Weekend?

Little Spirit will be five weeks old tomorrow. He is still a little smaller, but the size difference is certainly getting less with each passing day. In a couple more weeks will will probably start to see these guys begin "branching" to test their wings a bit while jumping from the nest to some of the nearby branches. Then in late May or early June we will see the first flights. I hope you are all ready!

Sunny Start to the Day

Welcome to Thursday. It is a nice start to the day, but we do have a chance for rain starting today and running through Saturday. Right now I do not think they are forecasting and severe stuff coming our way.

I see a couple of questions this morning I will try to answer. One-are there any other nests in the vicinity of this nest? I am not aware of any other nests nearby, or on our property. Two-would you consider switching to a video stream that does not require flashplayer? Our current agreement to stream the video is with BitGravity and the flashplayer requirement is part of their package, so for now we do not have that option.

Still no Audio

The good news is we are back online and the video looks fine. The bad news is the audio will not transfer over from the computer to the online stream. It will require some input from the software vendor and I'm guessing that will take until at least tomorrow. For now we will all just have to watch the silent version of Alcoa EagleCam.

Audio Fix This Afternoon

At some point this afternoon the camera will go offline for a little while so we can reboot the system. We believe this will fix the audio problem and let you all hear the sounds from the nest and the surrounding area once again. Here are a couple more pictures from earlier this week.

Five Weeks Old

Today our middle eaglet is five weeks old. That means the oldest turned five on Monday and Spirit will turn five this coming Saturday. Before we move on I do want to thank Klaus Kleinfeld for his heartfelt comments posted here yesterday. It was clear from your comments that he really connected with all of you.

Today I wanted to update a couple of things people have been asking about. First, the tree holding the nest is a cottonwood tree. It was mistakienly identified previously as an oak. The nest is about 80-85 feet above the ground. I am posting a few pictures here that show you the tree and where the nest is located and a couple of shots of the parents and where they sit sometimes when they are not in view of the camera or if they are just sailing by to check on things.

Alcoa CEO Talks Eagles

I just had a look at the EagleCam blog and I'm floored.  The bald eagle, which has inspired Americans for centuries, continues to inspire the current generation of Americans.  Very neat to read the blog posts and to get a sense of how much these majestic birds mean to people - not just for national pride, but for their important place in nature.  It's been just five short years that the eagle has been off the endangered species list, and it reminds us how fragile and precious our ecosystems are.  I know our colleagues at Alcoa Davenport feel really lucky to "host" the new eaglets and their parents and to be part of this renewal.  I feel proud too, especially to work for a company that so cherishes the natural environment, and with my fellow Alcoans who work every day to protect and preserve it!

-Klaus Kleinfeld, CEO, Alcoa

And The Winner Is...

More than 70,000 people took the time to vote over the last week for the names for the eaglets in the nest here at Alcoa. The winning names are:

Faith (oldest) 29,696 votes

Hope (second hatched) 30,537 votes

Spirit (youngest eaglet) 35,986 votes

We want to thank everyone who took the time to vote and leave their comments here and on the Alcoa Facebook page.



Last Day to Vote

A beautiful sunny Sunday morning for the eaglets. Don't forget that today is the last day to vote on names. You can do that on this page by scrolling down below the video box or at the Alcoa Facebook page at www.facebook.com/alcoa Have a great Sunday!

Back Online

Thanks for the patience from everyone today during our technical issues. And thanks to Bruce who works on this system and is connecting in from out-of-town today to get us back up and running. We are still missing the sound, but he assures me that will get fixed when he gets back in town. In the meantime you can all enjoy watching and adding your own sound/commentary.

Camera Still Down

Sorry to report my technical folks have still not solved today's camera problem. I can report that all is well in the nest. I made a trip down to the site to make sure. The nest is fine and I was able to see both parents in the nest and on a nearby branch. We hope to be back online as soon as possible.

Camera Issues

I see the camera has frozen up on us early this morning. This has happened a few times before, but not in a long time. I am working to get in touch with our technical people to have them check, but on a Saturday morning this may take a little while if it does not reset on its own. We hope to be back online as soons as we can.

Cooler Weekend Ahead

A cool front moved through the area overnight with a few light showers. The clouds should be clearing at some point today and the weekend will be cooler and drier. We received some nice pictures yesterday from Fox Creek Elementary in Colorado. Students in the second and sixth grade have been watching Alcoa EagleCam and studying about eagles. They have even set up their own version of an eagles nest in the school to really understand the size. Thanks to Fox Creek and to all the schools here in the Quad Cities and around the world using this as a learning tool.