Oklahoma's Famous Eagles Finally Pick Nest Site, Lay Eggs

NewsOn6.com

NEAR STILLWATER, OK -- A pair of bald eagles has finally settled on a nest and is incubating three eggs and thanks to the Sutton Avian Research Center people around the world can watch.

Watch NewsOn6.com's Live Bald Eagle Nest camera.

The Sutton Center believes this is the same pair that has raised eaglets on a nest built on a steel tower in Sooner Lake over the last several years.

But this year, the eagles worked on four different nests in the area before finally picking this site, which is in a dead cottonwood tree nearby.

The eagles' indecisiveness is just one of many obstacles the experts at the Center have had to overcome in order to provide real-time video of the pair to the world.

The Sutton Center, which is part of the University of Oklahoma's Oklahoma Biological Survey in the College of Arts and Sciences, had to get permission from the land owner to move the cameras and support equipment from the tower nest to the new nest.

The tree holding the new nest is so rickety, the job of climbing it and placing the camera over the nest fell to a special volunteer, a young man who weighs only 125 pounds.

The experts at the Sutton Avian Research Center in Bartlesville say they noticed the first egg on February 17^th, then saw the second and third egg a few days later. 

That means they don't expect to see the first evidence of hatching until the end of March.

The executive director of the Center, Dr. Steve Sherrod, says his staff members are happy to share the eagles with the rest of the world.

"I think our staff who've worked hard on this are thrilled to share the magic of life, of our national bird.  And you just have to realize that there are billions of things going on out there that are wonderful to share with people who are trapped in their offices."

The four main partners responsible for the program are the Sutton Center, Atlas Computers, OG&E and OneNet.

This year the staff installed a special trailer equipped with a wind-driven generator, two solar panels and a wide-angle camera.

The rig beams the cameras' signal to receivers mounted on the smokestacks at OG&E's power plant, so that anyone with an internet connection can watch.

In spite of the challenges the Center has overcome, the staff is humble. 

"It's not something we're looking for credit for, we want the natural world to get the credit, they're the ones who are producing the show," says Dr. Sherrod.

Those challenges can be unexpected.  One year beavers knocked the cameras off line by chewing through an underwater cable.  One year lightning hit the tree and knocked the nest right out of it. 

Dr. Sherrod says providing the live eagle nest cameras requires an amazing mix of volunteers, donations and hard work, and urges everyone to be patient should the cameras go off line.