SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.VA. (AP) — Housed many, many feet above the ground, close to the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, lives a pair of eagles — Smitty and Bella.
The pair has become an internet sensation as viewers from all over watch and enjoy the 24-hour-a-day live streams through a partnership with The Outdoor Channel.
Now, the NCTC and Friends of NCTC, a nonprofit organization, are working to share the enjoyment and education behind the live feeds with local students. The hope is to connect classrooms with televisions to which a computer can be linked and the feeds shared, a way for students to take part in the journey Smitty and Bella go on each year.
“We let the teachers take (the lessons) wherever they like,” NCTC Education Specialist Randy Robinson said. “There’s a lot of applications in science and biology. Some of the schools, though, we found out, don’t have large-screen TVs. That’s what the Friends of NCTC did. The Friends of NCTC is running a program where they’re asking for donations of large-screen TVs.
“This time of year, right before the Super Bowl, people will often purchase a new TV, so the Friends of NCTC came up with an idea of donating the TVs that are no longer needed by folks to local schools that need a TV.”
Friends of NCTC already piloted the program at Shepherdstown Elementary School and continues to seek donations of televisions, so teachers and students in other schools can follow along with the nesting season.
Adding to the educational aspect, Robinson also does a weekly Facebook Live called “Live from the Eagles Nest,” in which he answers questions every Thursday about what’s going on or about the eagles in general. Teachers and students, as well as the general public, are welcome to join, and Robinson is also open to scheduling virtual private sessions with classes.
The “Live from the Eagles Nest” videos will begin again on Feb. 18, featured every Thursday at 2 p.m.
It’s a chance for those who are new to watching the process a chance to learn, eagles having been so rare for so long, even spending time on the Endangered and Threatened Species List until 2007. Now, several nests around the area, including Smitty’s and Bella’s, are a treat for locals and visitors alike interested in learning more about the birds.
“It’s really, really neat,” Robinson said. “The eagles were on the Endangered Species List for many, many years. When I was a kid in school, I never saw an eagle. Now, all these years later, you can go out onto the Potomac or the Shenandoah, and you might very well see an eagle. They’re not as common as seeing other types of birds, but it’s a conservation success story. The eagles are coming back in a big way to this area.”
Robinson explained that several factors helped the population increase yet again, including outlawing the pesticide DDT, which causes egg formation problems, and being aware that lead — like that used in shotgun shells — is poisonous to the birds, as is rat poison, which eagles can ingest through eating rodents. Other issues for eagles include being hit by vehicles or flying into man-made structures like cell phone towers, power lines or wind turbines.
While not all factors can be outlawed or changed, the awareness has helped adjustments to be made to help protect the eagle population.
“It is a conservation success story, but we still have to be vigilant and be aware there’s other things that can harm them,” Robinson said. “Now, the eagles are no longer on the Endangered Species List. They were removed from the Endangered and Threatened Species List back in 2007, so that’s good news. Their population is definitely coming up. Even in urban areas, there are eagles nesting.
“Lots of people really love watching the eagles. It is fascinating and very educational, regardless of what age the students are. There’s activities teachers can do with elementary students, middle school students, high school students. There’s a lot of things they can learn about not just eagles but biology, environmental science, things like the pesticides in the environment.”
Currently, Smitty and Bella, who began building the nest in 2002 and laid their first eggs there in 2004, are in mating season. The pair is fixing up the nest, the same one used yearly, and might even be caught mating on camera every now and then. Robinson said eggs should be expected around Valentine’s Day, and with the new 4K camera, the views will be better than ever. NCTC employees will be able to remotely zoom the camera to capture the eggs hatching.
“People will be in for a treat this year,” he said. “They’ll be able to see details of the birds they haven’t before.
“You’ll know if the eggs are laid, because one of them will always be sitting on the nest. They’ve got to turn those eggs about every hour. If you look closely — usually the female does it — she’ll get up and take her beak, and she’ll roll the eggs so the eggs heat evenly all the way around. She’ll sit back down. The female and the male, actually, have a bare spot on their breasts where there isn’t any feathers. That’s so they can get their skin right up against the eggs. That’s called the brood patch. Other birds, like chickens and ducks, will have a brood patch, as well, when they sit on eggs.
“They’re very attentive parents. It’s amazing how attentive they are. It’s also amazing how fast the little eaglets grow. When they hatch, they’ll be a pip. They don’t just come out all at once like you see in the cartoons. It’s fairly slowly. The first thing will be a little pip; then a crack. Inside the shell, they have a little thing called an egg tooth on their beak. It’s like a little point they can use to break through the egg. That might take several hours for the egg to actually hatch.”
With an incubation period of 35-38 days, it won’t be long before tiny white-feathered eaglets are making their way around the nest, Smitty and Bella bringing in food until they grow big enough to go out on their own. The eagles lay between one and three eggs each year, this particular couple having three eggs just twice — once in 2006 and again in 2008.
“That’s the most popular time to watch the eagle cam, is from the time they hatch until the time they fledge,” Robinson said, explaining that fledging is the first time the babies take flight. “Almost daily, you can see changes to them. They’re white when they first come out. About a week after that, they’ll have a grayish color to them. That’s called their thermal coat, and that gives them a little more insulation. They’re eating almost every hour. You’ll see fish after fish come in. They need fed high-protein food with lots of moisture, and that’s fish.”
Within three months, the eaglets will already be adult-sized and ready to fly, but the days leading up to when they fledge won’t be without laughs. Robinson explained that the birds’ beaks and feet grow faster than their bodies, making for some comical moments on the feeds.
“They’re sort of like clowns,” he laughed. “They’re clumsy. They’re walking around the nest and will fall over, because their feet are too big. A lot of people get a kick out of that.”
By May, the birds will start to stretch their wings and hop around, sort of pretending to fly as they strengthen their muscles, and around mid-June, Bella and Smitty won’t be supplying as much food, a way to encourage the babies to learn to hunt and fish on their own.
“At some point, the young one will be brave and take the leap,” Robinson said. “They’ll be clumsy at first. You can tell when you see them, they’re not as graceful as the adults.”
Sporadically through June, July and into early August, the eagles will return to the nest before going out on their own.
Robinson warned not to expect the babies to come out looking like one typically thinks of an eagle. Those majestic white heads don’t come until they are of mating age, around 3-4 years old.
Robinson, who has been with NCTC since 2001, said that it’s been fun to watch Smitty and Bella’s journey over the last two decades, something he loves sharing with classrooms and the public alike.
“I started at NCTC in 2001,” he said. “It would’ve been the year after I got there that they started building the nest. I’ve got to see it over the last 20 years. It’s been fascinating to see how they started out, just a crotch of a tree and a single limb.
“The more you watch them, the more you’ll understand their behaviors. That’s what makes it really interesting. Bella, she’s bigger, and she’s more aggressive. Any female, they kind of own the nest. The male is there in a supplemental role, bringing in food, defending the nest, sometimes sitting on the eggs, but overall, the nest belongs to the female, and she knows it. It’s often comical. A lot of people get a kick out of watching the nest and one of them brings a stick in. They might both grab it with their beaks and pull on it in sort of a tug-of-war and argue or fight — that’s what it looks like — over where it should go. People watching it will equate it to a husband and wife arguing over where a piece of furniture should go.”
Donations of televisions can be made by contacting the Friends of NCTC at info@friendsofnctc.org, and more information on the nonprofit can be found at www.friendsofnctc.org.
Smitty and Bella’s live feeds can be found at www.outdoorchannel.com/eaglecam, and Robinson’s weekly “Live from the Eagles Nest” videos are found on the NCTC Facebook page at www.facebook.com/USFWSNCTC.
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