Brandi, apparently the eggs weren't fertile, and apparently collapsed after they were overdue to hatch. The parents are older- maybe that has something to do with it. They hatched two babies last year, but neither survived the first week. I was so looking forward to seeing the babies grow up.

Here's a story a guy on the eagle forum wrote: (kleenex alert!!)

Sound Guy
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 1390
Location: Calgary Canada
Posted: Wed May 03, 2006 9:18 am Post subject:

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Some Thoughts .... About "US"


Somewhere in the near future, a young couple and their pre-school daughter will visit Hornby Island.

On their stroll toward a tall growth of Douglas Firs, the father points and says, “That’s where we met. It was the spring of 2006. There were millions of us here, from all over the world.”

With a quizzical look his daughter asks, “Where, by those trees?”

The couple and their daughter come to the edge of the fir stand, and the father points again, “There it is,that’s the tree where we all met, that funny looking one with no top.” With a more puzzled look than ever his daughter says, “How could millions of people meet in a tree?” The father, now shouting with excitement, “and there’s the nest, see that little clump on the top branches? That’s it .. there it is, the eagles nest where we met!” The five year old looks at her mother and asks, “Is daddy telling another fairy tale mommy?”

It wasn’t a fairy tale, we were there. We saw it, and we lived it.

We were total strangers, known only by funny sounding names like “Nufdawg” , “Squink” and “Hotflash.” The one’s we could put an imaginary face to, were David Hancock, Richard Pitt, and David Carrick.
We were brought together as a family. We laughed together, shared together, we agonized together and we cried together. And yet, we never met face to face.

As the couple and their child walk away, the father takes a final glance. The nest looks a shambles. Dead twigs hanging, some caught like spears in the branch below. At the edge of the nest, what appears to be
a growth of deep green moss. One side of the tree has turned a rust colour.

If you close your eyes you can see it. The little blue patch in the corner. The funny face at the end of that snapped off branch. And the white, yellow and mahogany brown of the eagles. Feathers that look like an acrylic painting. And if you listen closely, high above the trees in the mist of Hornby Island, the distant echo’s of the soft melodic whistling of two American Bald Eagles. Maybe the progeny of two elderly eagles who allowed us to share their most intimate moments. Next spring, they’ll perform their beautiful tumbling mid-air courtship ballet. And maybe, they’ll come back to the Hornby Island nest. To repair, and rebuild.

And start all over again.



May, 2006. Hornby Island. Eagle Time: Forever