Triplets! 3 baby eagles confirmed on Minnesota DNR EagleCam
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Three baby eagles have hatched in the nest featured on the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources EagleCam.
DNR staff on Monday confirmed three eaglets in the nest believed to be four to five days old.
“We have been carefully watching the nest for signs of a chick, and we suspected that there might be one, but we hadn't yet been able to confirm it,” said Jessica Ruthenberg, the wildlife engagement supervisor for the DNR’s Nongame Wildlife Program.
Thanks to EagleCam viewers watching the feed like hawks, the DNR believes a hatchling was first sighted on Thursday. Comments on the EagleCam Facebook page noted that on Monday, someone had spotted three eaglets, which helped staff review the footage to confirm the count.
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A bald eagle chick is about the size of a tennis ball when it’s born and typically weighs about 3 ounces.
EagleCam fans will have plenty of activity for the rest of the season. The parents will start bringing back food for the hungry eaglets.
“Over these first two weeks, there will be an adult — usually it will be the female — who will be in the nest almost all the time with the chicks. The male will come in and bring food, which they'll feed to the chicks,” Ruthenberg said. “Sometimes the male and female will exchange these sort of brooding duties because the chicks have to be kept warm.”
They'll grow quickly, reaching 1 pound in weight in their first week and their vision will develop enough to see their parents. By three weeks, they could be up up to 3 pounds. By then, the eagles will be able to stand, move around the nest and feed themselves.
The eaglets will be about 70% of their adult size by early May, when they’ll start to fledge. The young will fly away from the nest around the end of June or early July.
The adults have been nesting in the area for about five years, and they have fledged chicks at this site in the past, including two female chicks last year.
This is the second batch of eaglets caught on camera since the original nest fell in April 2023. And the first season in the new location brought a few surprises, such as the pair picking a different nest nearly 300 yards away from the camera, and a duck moving in to the abandoned nest to raise her own family.
The nest livestream has helped to highlight the restoration of bald eagles in Minnesota and around the country. The stream draws viewers from more than 150 countries and all 50 states in the United States.
“So far this season, we've had almost 70,000 people tune in to watch the eagles,” Ruthenberg said.
It also provides a fundraising venue for the Nongame Wildlife Program, allowing Minnesota to continue protecting at-risk wildlife.
Gifts to the Nongame Wildlife Fund can be made online anytime at mndnr.gov/donate or on Minnesota income tax forms.
