VIRGINIA BEACH
The great big black bald eaglet was hunkered down in a pine tree doing its best to ignore the noisy, mobbing crows.
It was the eaglet's first full day out of the nest, and the crows were determined to make the baby miserable.
But everybody on the ground watching was so happy. All's well that ends well.
The wonderful and sad saga of the famous Norfolk Botanical Garden eagle nest ended last week when the baby fledged.
Folks who followed the nest on the garden's eagle cam for several years will remember that the male eagle's mate was killed in 2011 by a plane at nearby Norfolk International Airport.
After that, federal wildlife officials consistently deterred the male from nesting at the garden, much to the dismay and heartbreak of eagle lovers.
Carol Senechal formed Eagle on Alliance to keep the Norfolk Botanical Garden eagles safe from harm. The alliance even filed a lawsuit to protect the eagle from harassment.
The determined male finally settled for a nest site on private property this winter in nearby Hunt Club Point in Norfolk. It is a much safer spot in the middle of a two-acre wooded lot. On the north end of Lake Smith, the new nest is about a mile away from the old one.
Not only did the male finally find a new home, but he also found a new mate - his daughter, to be exact. She is an eagle dubbed HE when she was banded at the garden nest in 2009.
The incestuous relationship was of interest to biologists at the Center for Conservation Biology in Williamsburg, who were following the saga. Biologists don't have the opportunity to track such day-to-day activity among individual animals very often, explained Reese Lukei, a research associate at the center.
According to a center news release, "the mating of full siblings or parents with offspring - has been rarely documented."
It is assumed that youngsters usually fly far enough away from their home nest that inbreeding is unlikely, but HE is obviously a homebody.
In fact, all three eaglets born at the garden that year were banded and have been sticking nearby. Brother HK has been in the news for trying to establish a nest near Honey Bee Golf Club in Virginia Beach; and sibling Azalea, who was tracked for three years by satellite transmitter, visited home often.
It takes about five years for an eagle to reach breeding age, so this was the first year for any of the siblings to breed. HE got right to it, and HK tried. Azalea's transmitter has fallen off, so her activity can't be followed until or if someone can read her band.
The siblings' father was not banded, but he can be identified by a mark on the iris of his left eye.
It took the eagle eye of eagle-watchers with long-range camera lenses - trained on the nest this winter and spring - to identify the male and mate HE.
Photographers also were able to document the nest activity from egg to hatchling to fledging, as well as one beauty of a youngster produced by the dad and daughter pair.
To find out more about the Norfolk Botanical Garden eagle saga, visit www.eagleonalliance.com. To see Senechal's many videos, search "NBG Eagles Youtube" on Google. Also search "Norfolk Botanical Garden eagles" for more videos from others.
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS
On my blog, see these images: Joan Chang's photo of black snake love, the new overlook that volunteers built at False Cape State Park, the re-homing of two baby ospreys on the Lynnhaven, and Pam Monahan's hummingbird fuchsia bar.
While conducting a survey of osprey nests on the Lynnhaven River, Reese Lukei was able to photograph and identify the band on an osprey that he banded as a youngster back in 2001.
Flo Womack photographed a group of royal terns facing into the wind on a Lynnhaven Inlet mud flat.
See both Womack's and Lukei's photos in Thursday Beacon Close Encounters.
Harvey Seargeant sent several photos of activity at the great egret rookery on Lynn Drive in Portsmouth.
Jack Begley in Bellamy Manor Estates said that "Freda and Manny," the great crested flycatchers that have nested in his yard for years, are teasing him this year. They act like they are going to nest and then disappear. My great-crested flycatchers just draped a snakeskin at the box entrance. To keep the big bad wolf away?
Jack Short, age 10, photographed a skink sunning in the driveway at his home in Linkhorn Park.
Tom Brewster in Thalia photographed a black snake in the bushes in his yard.
John Wittmann in West Neck sent a photo of a beautiful young Cooper's hawk with an almost white breast and head.
Robert Brown heard what he was pretty sure was coyotes calling, perhaps an adult and young, at Beach Garden Park.
Joe Gosse sent photos of what could be a yellow-bellied turtle laying eggs at his condo off Northampton Boulevard.
Jeannie Winters photographed a yellow crowned night heron, feathers all ruffled in the wind, walking across an oyster reef at Pleasure House Point.
June McDaniels sent a sweet photo of a raccoon and baby nestled in for a nap in the crook of a tree at First Landing State Park.
Michelle Gaggiotti in Newcastle has removed two cowbird eggs from a Carolina wren nest in a sweet potato vine basket in her yard. The wren then went on to lay more eggs and surround the nest with snakeskins and her cat's fur! Cowbird eggs are similar but bigger than wren eggs and not as pinkish looking. And Crissy Zappernick in Avalon Hills sent a photo of a wren nest in a potted plant on her front porch.
Lorraine Livera in Kings Grant reported that a visit from an immature male blue grosbeak.
Pam Evans in Oceana sent a photo of two Luna moths mating on boxwood bushes. Luna moths have no mouth parts and exist only to mate and lay eggs.
Jonathan Snyder photographed a male northern flicker, with its black sideburns, poking its head of its tree hole at Stumpy Lake. And Tim Shook photographed a big ol' red-bellied woodpecker hanging off his hummingbird feeder in Kempsville Heights.
Ed Burk in Glen Gariff in Norfolk reported a pileated woodpecker in his yard for the first time, hopping along the fence posts and tree trunk, "making all sorts of noise."
Carol Black in Knotts Island sent a photo of a barn swallow nest built around the light fixture in the garden.