Smile … you're on 'Eagle Cam'

In a much-welcomed sign of spring, a pair of bald eagles has moved back into the Souse Gulch nest at Libby Dam – and the Eagle Cam is once again catching rare glimpses of them.

Two weeks ago Libby Dam electricians and information technology personnel set up the Eagle Cam to offer live online footage of a nest that rests in a pine tree about 100 feet in the air.

More than 20,000 viewers watched the eagles during nesting season last year, from when the adults were first spotted Feb. 22 to when two hatched eaglets took to the skies – or fledged – on their own by July 7. 

The Eagle Cam has been online each nesting season since 2005, gaining popularity worldwide.

“I’ve gotten e-mails from Poland and Japan,” said Mark Andreasen, Libby Dam Park Ranger. “With the ease of the Internet, it’s a global exposure.” 

Andreasen continues to be pleasantly surprised at the volume of e-mails and calls he receives concerning the nest. He has corresponded with biologists from all parts of the country, as well as classes that monitor the website for school projects. Some people request technical advice to set up their own eagle-viewing cameras and others just express appreciation for the site.

“I would have never envisioned this,” Andreasen said about the publicity.

The idea of setting up a camera at the eagle nest came about when the equipment was donated to Libby Dam. A contractor who was working on security upgrades for the facility provided the camera, transmitters and receivers that provide the feed and a monitor to view the footage in the visitor center.   

The color surveillance camera is housed in a sealed, weatherproof, outdoor enclosure, with a heated interior to keep the lens from fogging up. The dam receives a live video feed but because of insufficient bandwidth, the online version is a snapshot of the video taken every 10 seconds.

Libby Dam manages about 2,000 acres of land around Lake Koocanusa and is active in bald eagle management. The state of Montana monitors Souse Gulch nest activity to include in a database that compares eagle trends from year to year.

Before the camera was set up in 2005, Libby Dam park rangers observed eagle trends – when eagle pairs appeared, when they began laying eggs, the mortality rate of the eggs, and so on – in other ways.

“Before, we were monitoring with binoculars,” Andreasen said. “They would have to go out and locate the nest based on the time frames that they knew.

Park rangers would have to rely on other knowledge – such as the eagles’ posture on the nest when they’re tending to eggs – to decipher specific dates. Even then, it was only accurate to within a few weeks.

“The Eagle Cam has allowed us to pick out those dates now to the day,” said Andreasen. “We’ve got a following and they know exactly when they’re laying the eggs.”

Andreasen confessed that waiting for eggs to appear is “like watching paint dry,” so having thousands of extra sets of eyes watching the nest is helpful. Viewers also let him know when the camera experiences technical problems.

“It helps on my end of it that we have this following,” Andreasen said. “Everyday we’ll check on it, but maybe for part of the day the camera will go down. The minute that happens, or at least within hours, people are e-mailing me wanting to know what happened to the Eagle Cam.”

Since 1997, Souse Gulch nest has provided shelter for 23 eggs, 21 of which have lived to become fledgling eaglets.

“It’s been a very productive nest,” Andreasen said. “Putting the Eagle Cam on this nest, you make a commitment, and thank goodness they haven’t decided to abandon it.”

On the Net: To view the nest online type “eagle_cam_main” in the search feature at www.nws.usace.army.mil