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May
Egg Laying/Hatching Rearing
It's May...
Caption Page: Cleaning the Nest?
Adult eagles obviously bring in a lot of fish for the 3 months their young are in the nest, and that can be quite an attraction to flies and other insects! It can also create quite a smell! Occasionally, insect loads are so bad up in a nest, that a chick or two may die, due to stress and simply being bitten to death. I've seen this with black flies in our Adirondack region where bugs and insects are intense. I would imagine many parts of interior Canada are the same. Eagles might get some relief from this, by putting their nests up very high, and thus keeping up and away from insects as well as benefiting from more regular breezes, which act to keep bugs down. To help keep nests clean, eagles continuously add fresh vegetation to their nest, covering up old food. I have yet to see them actually "clean-up" their nest, however, by removing old fish scraps. Some nests get pretty gross with old, maggot-filled fish parts stuck in the sticks of the nest, baking in the hot sun! Eagles often build "alternate" nests, within their territory near their other nest, likely in an attempt to let one nest sit unused for a year or two, to allow it to "weather" and clean itself out.
Facts and Photos
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