Decorah North Bald Eagle Cam
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Welcome to the Decorah North Eagles! We hope you enjoy watching and learning with us! Click the livestream to watch and scroll down the page to learn more about the eagles and their surroundings. For branch ID, follow this link. For pasture perches, follow this link!
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About the Decorah North Eagles
About the Eagles
The Decorah North eagles are nesting on private property north of Decorah, Iowa. Their nest is located in a white oak tree in a scrap of forest bordering a valley. A stream is located across a field where cattle are pastured. In general, the eagles begin courtship in October, productive mating in late January or early February, and egg-laying in mid to late February. Hatching usually begins in late March to early April, and the eaglets fledge in mid-to-late June. While young usually disperse between August and October, the adults remain on territory year round.
The eagles eat live and dead fish, squirrels, other birds, rabbit, muskrat, deer, possum and anything else they can catch or find. To learn more about bald eagles in general, please follow this link to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website.
Adults
Decorah North Bald Eagles: DNF and Mr. North
The male is known as Mr. North. The female is the Decorah North Female, or DNF, who replaced Mrs. North in the summer of 2018. We don’t know exactly how or when it happened. You can read more about it here: https://www.raptorresource.org/2019/01/20/north-nest-announcement/
Nests
The first nest at the North site was built in a pine tree. The branches collapsed after the second nesting season and the eagles moved to a dead elm tree. They nested there for just one year before moving to their current location in late 2013. In August of 2018, their nest collapsed and slid or fell out of the nest tree during an extremely heavy storm. None of the tree branches were broken or damaged, so we decided to build a starter nest in the same spot. 2020 will mark their seventh season and fourth nest on this territory.
- 2018: A female eagle (DNF, or Decorah North Female) replaces Mrs. North over the summer. The nest falls out of the tree following a storm in late August. Kike Arnal and Amy Ries build a starter nest in mid-September. Mr. North and DNF adopt it in October.
- 2015: RRP adds cameras to the North Nest in September.
- 2013: The tree falls. The eagles begin a new nest in a white oak tree.
- 2011: The branches holding the nest collapse. The eagles build a new nest in a dead elm tree.
- 2009: A pair of eagles establishes the Decorah North territory, building a nest in a white pine tree.
The North nest is 56 feet off the ground.
- In 2021, the nest was 8.25 feet at its longest point and 6.25 feet at its widest point. Measured outermost stick to outermost stick, the nest measured 12 feet across. We can’t really get a height on it, since we can’t get anywhere near the bottom and the nest slopes downward from the top. Our best guess is six feet high at its tallest measure.
- In 2019, the nest was seven feet long at its longest point, four feet wide at its widest point, was about 3.5 feet high, and had a perimeter of roughly 18 feet.
Quick facts
Common name: Bald Eagle
Scientific name: Haliaeetus leucocephalus
Length: 2.3–3.1 feet | 71–96 cm
Wingspan: 5.9 – 7.5 feet | 1.7-2.2 meters
Weight: 6.5 – 13.8 pounds | 3–6.3 kilograms
Lifespan: Up to 40 years in the wild
Bald Eagle Vocalization
Learn More About Bald Eagles
Eaglet Growth and Development: Week Four
Posted: April 19, 2024
We’re writing a series of blogs about the first few weeks of an eaglet’s life. An eaglet spends roughly 75 to 80 days in the nest. For about the first half, it grows and gains weight. For about the second half, it grows flight feathers and starts developing the skills it will need post-fledge. We will focus on week four in this blog. During week three (fourteen to twenty-one days), the dynamic duo shed most of their natal down, gained
Bald Eagles, Menopause, and Ova
Posted: April 19, 2024
Do bald eagles go through menopause? Probably not, since we’ve documented menopause or prolonged post-reproductive lifespans in just four species.
What are feathers? What is molt?
Posted: April 16, 2024
Eaglets go through two molts and three feather stages in the nest: natal down (and molt), followed by thermal down (and molt), followed by juvenile feathers. As of this blog, the Decorah North eaglets are shedding the very last of their natal down and their thermal down is rapidly being replaced by juvenile down and feathers. We thought we would blog a little more about feathers to celebrate! When we think about feathers, we tend to think about their qualities
Canada Geese: Precocial versus Altricial
Posted: April 14, 2024
As watchers know, Canada geese are nesting in two abandoned bald eagle nests in Decorah, Iowa. N2B – currently a goose nest – is located about 700 feet east of N1, where geese started hatching yesterday. This blog discusses some of the differences between altricial eagles and precocial geese! Altricial eaglets rely on parental care until they fledge. But goslings are precocial: capable of moving around, self-feeding, and leaving the nest shortly after hatch. What does that mean? Read on
Eaglet Growth and Development: Week Three
Posted: April 8, 2024
We’re writing a series of blogs about the first few weeks of an eaglet’s life. An eaglet spends roughly 75 to 80 days in the nest. For about the first half, it grows and gains weight. For about the second half, it grows flight feathers and starts developing the skills it will need post-fledge. We will focus on week three in this blog. DN17 and DN18 turned 15 and 14 days old today. During week two (seven to 14 days),
Click for More About Bald Eagles
News
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May 1, 2024: News and NestFlix from Decorah North and Trempealeau
Posted: May 1, 2024
DN17 and DN18 turn 38 and 37 days old today and we’re getting asked about their likely sexes. We’ll be looking and listening for differences, but we wanted to address a couple of interesting factors when it comes to eaglet size and sex. After about 30 days, the weights of the two sexes begin to diverge as females gain weight faster than males. Mark Stalmaster tells us that three major circ*mstances influence the relative sizes of nestmates: early hatchers are
DN18 Update
Posted: April 27, 2024
DN18 update! The eaglet cleared the line some time last night and it is no longer hanging from his or her mouth. The North nest is not easy to get into and entering it while the eaglets are in it puts them at risk. We have canceled our plans to get DN18 from the nest, but are still watching closely. Our camera operators report that the little eaglet has been busy today playing with sticks, cuddle puddling, warbling, eating, and
Problem at the North Nest
Posted: April 26, 2024
As North nest watchers probably know, DN18 swallowed fishing line that appears to have come in with a sucker fish that DNF brought to the nest on April 24. We’ve been monitoring it closely to see if it could clear the line by pulling it out or casting a pellet. The eaglet is eating and behaving normally, but it hasn’t yet managed to remove the line. Eagles eat a lot of indigestible stuff, including sharp bones, and we were hoping
News and NestFlix from Decorah North and The Flyway
Posted: April 24, 2024
DN17 and DN18 turn 30 and 31 days old today! The dynamic duo are tracking and paying attention to life outside the nest: the place that their parents come from and go to, often bearing food, and the world that their parents see, hear, and respond to: birds overhead, animals on the ground, other eagles, one another. It’s a wonderful look at the ways in which instinct and imprinting unlock an important behavior and all the learning that goes with
Eaglet Growth and Development: Week Four
Posted: April 19, 2024
We’re writing a series of blogs about the first few weeks of an eaglet’s life. An eaglet spends roughly 75 to 80 days in the nest. For about the first half, it grows and gains weight. For about the second half, it grows flight feathers and starts developing the skills it will need post-fledge. We will focus on week four in this blog. During week three (fourteen to twenty-one days), the dynamic duo shed most of their natal down, gained
>> More News
Nest Records
Decorah North Eagles 2024 Nesting Record
Egg Laying
DNF laid egg #1 @ 2:12 PM on February 15.
DNF laid egg #2 @ 2:49 PM on February 18.
Hatching
DN17: We don’t have a hatch time for DN17, but we first saw it at 6:31 AM on March 24. DN17 is 60 days 16 hours old today.
DN18 hatched at 3:14 AM CDT on March 25. DN18 is 59 days 19 hours old today.
Fledging
Some time between early and mid-June.
Eaglets and Outcomes:Detailed Annual Information
| Year | Nest | Parents | Eaglets | Known Outcomes |
| 2023 | DN4 | Mr. North, DNF | None | DNF laid one egg but abandoned incubation two days after laying it. Mr. North incubated their lone egg, which most likely froze before it cracked. She did not reclutch. |
| 2022 | DN4 | Mr. North, DNF | DN15, DN16 | DN15 and DN16 both fledged successfully! As of late July, the two were exploring the North Valley and improving their flight skills. We saw some black flies here, but there were not enough to drive the young from the nest. |
| 2021 | DN4 | Mr. North, DNF | DN13, DN14 | DN13 and DN14 both fledged successfully! As of early July, 2021, the two were exploring the North Valley and improving their flight skills. Black flies were not an issue at this nest in 2021. |
| 2020 | DN4 | Mr. North, DNF | DN11, DN12 | DN11 died at 5:56 AM on April 10. It appeared to have an obstruction in its throat that it could not clear. DN12 fledged successfully. |
| 2019 | DN4 | Mr. North, DNF | DN9, DN10 | DNF laid two eggs beginning on February 21st. Both hatched beginning on March31, but DN10 died shortly after hatch. DN9 abandoned the nest early following an intense blackfly swarm. David Kester from the Raptor Resource Project rescued him. He was cared for by SOAR and released in the fall of 2019. |
| 2018 | DN3 | Mr. North, Mrs. North | DN7, DN8 | Mrs. North laid one egg on 2/25/18. That egg broke in the wee hours of March 16. She reclutched on 4/12, laying two eggs. Both eggs hatched, but the eaglets succumbed to heat and blackfly bites on May 25. |
| 2017 | DN3 | Mr. North, Mrs. North | DN4, DN5, DN6 | DN6 died of hypothermia shortly after hatch. DN4 and DN5 survived and fledged. |
| 2016 | DN3 | Mr. North, Mrs. North | DN1, DN2, DN3 | 3 eggs hatched. DN3 died of cold and malnourishment on May 11. Sibling aggression was a significant factor. DN2 was killed by contaminated prey on May 25th. DN1 survived to fledge. |
We often get questions about where the eaglets go after they disperse. We have never tracked eaglets from this nest, but we have tracked eaglets from the Decorah nest. For more information, visit our eagle maps.
Decorah North Eagles Video Library
Decorah North Eagles Video Library
Click the hamburger icon on the top right of the video below to view a full list of videos from our most recent playlist, or visit our youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/RaptorResourceProject.
