My family and I have been keeping a close watch from our
back deck of the nesting pair of bald eagles and their
fledglings out on Bay Terrace
north of Discovery Park. The dominant fledgling flew
yesterday (Sunday 7/16). He(she) was out of the nest
flapping around and stretching its
wings and hopping a bit. It would start to flap and lift
up a few inches. It was a very blustery day and their
tree was swaying in the wind and all
the branches were in constant motion. On one of the big
gusts the fledgling all of a sudden lifted up and was
blown southerly from the tree and
instantly its flight was obscured by the house above us.
We scrambled off the deck and into the yard but by that
time the eaglet had recovered
and turned itself around and landed in the bushy upper
part of the tree on the western side. Its nest mate
looked upward after it landed. There
was a lot of flapping once it alit. I suppose it was in
an effort to situate itself amongst the thick branches.
After about 10 minutes of being in the
top it worked its way over to the north side of the tree
and then dropped down onto the "porch". (The porch is a
branch that extends
northeasterly from the nest that the two adults will
frequently perch while at home.) There it sat and after
another ten minutes or so it side hopped
and fluttered into the nest area again. All was quiet
for a couple of hours. Then around 8:30 or 9:00pm it
started another round of flapping. It
again took off in the same southern direction, stayed
airborne for 15-20 sec. and then landed back near its
same perch. It did not land on the
upper part after this flight. It was able to return to
the open branches around the nest area. The other
fledgling seems interested in flying but it
doesn't appear as active when it comes to stretching its
wings and mimicking flight like behavior. We have read
that some forty percent of
fledglings do not survive their first flight. We had
been anticipating this event for quite a few days and
were relieved to see this fledgling make the
grade! We feel that this was the first flight as we keep
a fairly close watch on the nest and had been watching
quite a bit this weekend in
anticipation of this first flight. Although its entirely
possible the one has previously flown, we have not
observed any flying by the fledglings up until
this point.

John Hanske
Seattle,Wa
hanske at att.net