The Birds Australia Discovery Centre is an interactive interpretive hub where we provide opportunities for people to learn about and engage with birds in their natural habitat. And what better way to do so than by observing our resident pair of White-bellied Sea-Eagles on the nest! EagleCAM gives bird lovers, researchers and scientists 24-hour access into the lives of our nesting sea-eagles and allows us to investigate their habitat, habits and how we can help them survive long term.
Established in 2009, EagleCAM (Sea-EagleCAM on Ustream) is a live remote feed that operates out of the Discovery Centre in Sydney Olympic Park at Homebush, close to the Parramatta River. EagleCAM was started and funded by a small group of Birds Australia volunteers, who continue to develop and operate the technology that brings the sea-eagles to your screen.
Despite the collapse of the nesting tree earlier in the year this remarkable couple have built a new nest in double-quick time and recently laid two eggs. Through EagleCAM, you have a unique and amazing opportunity to follow their progress as we count down to the hatching of the first egg on or around the 14th of August.
Help us stay connected - support the Discovery Centre’s EagleCAM by making an online donation today.
28 June 2011 – The new camera set-up allows us to observe the nest at night. In the past we have not known which of the birds incubates or broods the small chicks at night. Last year the female was normally on the nest at first light and at dusk when the eaglets were small. The night vision will enable us to see if the female alone does the night shift, or if the male helps as well.
28 June 2011 – Both of the eagles are busy at the nest. The male brings most of the sticks and the female brings leaves. Before the temporary cameras were removed, we observed the female breaking off a leafy branch from the nest tree, using her bill. Both birds move sticks and leaves around in the nest, which is now a deep bowl lined with leaves.
The first egg for 2011 has been laid on 4th of July
The second egg was laid at 6:00pm on the 7 July.
The first egg is pipped on Aug. 13
5 hours after the chick finally escaped from its egg. Aug 14.
Day 2
Day 3
28 June 2011 – The new camera set-up allows us to observe the nest at night. In the past we have not known which of the birds incubates or broods the small chicks at night. Last year the female was normally on the nest at first light and at dusk when the eaglets were small. The night vision will enable us to see if the female alone does the night shift, or if the male helps as well.
28 June 2011 – Both of the eagles are busy at the nest. The male brings most of the sticks and the female brings leaves. Before the temporary cameras were removed, we observed the female breaking off a leafy branch from the nest tree, using her bill. Both birds move sticks and leaves around in the nest, which is now a deep bowl lined with leaves.
The first egg for 2011 has been laid on 4th of July
The second egg was laid at 6:00pm on the 7 July.
The first egg is pipped on Aug. 13
5 hours after the chick finally escaped from its egg. Aug 14.
Day 2
Day 3
Eagle Diary 2011
FEBRUARY 2011: The sea-eagles’ old nest, which they had been using for several years, raising a number of chicks, was destroyed when the branch which supported it collapsed in strong winds (see Channel 7 News story February 2011).
MAY 2011: After their old nest fell down in February, we were wondering where the sea-eagles would build a new nest. Would they be faithful to the site which had been so successful in the past? Should we put up an artificial structure in the tree for them to use? We identified a number of suitable forks in other trees but the sea-eagles made their own decision and started building a new nest in the same tree in May. The bulky neat gradually grew bigger and bigger as the birds (though mainly the male) brought in hundreds of sticks to make the basic nest-structure, and then lined it with a thick layer of green gum leaves so that there was a soft place for the female sea-eagle to lay her eggs. The eggs are usually laid within two weeks of the nest being completed.
4 JULY 2011: The FIRST EGG was laid at approximately 5:40pm. The female had been sitting in the nest since 5:15pm. She stood up a few times where we could see that, initially, the nest was empty. She then stood up at 5:40pm and there it was — a large dull-white egg sitting among the leaves in the nest!
7 JULY 2011: A SECOND EGG was laid at 6:00pm. Mum is staying very close to the eggs.
13 AUGUST 2011: At about 3:00pm the first egg pipped (a little hole appeared in shell). The male was incubating the eggs at the time. The female came soon afterwards to take over incubation duties, and she stayed on the eggs throughout the night (male sea-eagles never incubate overnight).
14 AUGUST 2011: Pop the champagne corks! The first eaglet HATCHED at 8:55am. After such an enormous effort to escape the egg, the tiny chick took all day to recover its strength. Both parents took turns to brood the chick to keep it warm.
15 AUGUST 2011: The chick had its first feed early in the morning — a fish caught in the nearby Parramatta River. Soon afterwards, the second egg started pipping (a small crack appeared in its shell). The crack gradually widened and the chick’s head popped out from the egg at about 11:30 am, and by lunchtime the chick was out!
18 SEPTEMBER 2011: Sea-EagleCAM live streaming on the internet has achieved 1,000,000 views in the 82 days since we started streaming. We have had $12,000 in donations from all over the world and a worldwide audience has embraced our little eaglet. S2, our little baby is not so little any more and for the last few days has been doing a bit of standing, not for long and a bit shaky.
All going well, the nestling should fledge in October, and all the while EagleCAM will be helping us to keep an ‘eagle’ eye on the family’s every movement.
About EagleCam
Birds Australia volunteers set up a high definition video camera to monitor the nest of a pair of resident White-bellied Sea-Eagles, 15 metres (50 feet) above the ground, in a eucalyptus tree within a protected nature reserve of Sydney Olympic Park, Australia (see Channel 7 News story August 2010). The video is fed back to the Birds Australia Discovery Centre via an optical fibre cable giving a high definition video display to visitors as well as the live feed to Ustream.
This year it is closer to the nest giving extremely good close-up images but, when zoomed out wide, we only see a bit more than the whole nest in the frame. It was a delicate balancing act to select the correct time to install the camera and we had to be sure that the sea-eagles were committed to the nest but not too far into the season for the installation to cause a disturbance. On the afternoon after the installation, the sea-eagles did not appear at the nest and, although this was expected and consistent with the last two years, it still does not diminish the apprehension in waiting for their first on-camera visit back at the nest. Indeed, we were very mindful of a study done on Kangaroo Island about the effects of human proximity to nesting sea-eagles (see Dennis et al. 2011, Emu vol. 111, pages 179–185) but, as in past years, our sea-eagles were in the limelight the very next morning — the female bringing in leaves and the male delivering a fish to the female at the nest, oblivious to our camera.
We have also added an infrared light which gives the ability to see in the dark. The quality of the night video is not as good as the daytime high-definition video but it will give us valuable information on what happens on the nest at night. This means that we will have vision of the nest 24/7.
About Sea-Eagles
The White-bellied Sea-Eagle (Haliaeetus leucogaster) is the second largest bird of prey in Australia, with a wing span of 1.8–2.2 metres (6–7 feet). It measures 75–85cm (30–33 inches) in length and can weigh up to 4.2kg (9 pounds); the female is larger and heavier than the male. Sea-eagles are found around the coast and along the major rivers of mainland Australia and Tasmania, New Guinea, South East Asia and as far west as the coast of India. Their diet is mainly fish but also includes birds, reptiles, mammals and carrion. Sea-eagles may live for up to 30 years.
They usually lay two eggs at the end of June or early July and incubate them for 40 days before they hatch in early August. The young remain in the nest for approximately 3 months the beginning of November, when they are ready to fly. They then spend most of their time away from the nest, unless the adults continue to bring in food, in which case they may occasionally be seen at the nest until January the following year. The young birds may take up to 6 years to reach maturity, gradually losing their brown juvenile plumage and gaining the characteristic grey-and-white plumage of the adults. Our sea-eagles take fish from the nearby Parramatta River and surrounding wetlands of Sydney Olympic Park. When the eaglets are approximately 1–2 months old, a large part of their diet is made up of Silver Gulls caught from a small breeding colony on the wrecks in Homebush Bay.
We would like to thank those who have donated their time, skill and financial assistance:
Jon Irvine, Geoff Hutchinson, Judy Harrington, Sue Marlin, Graham Weule, Joan Rosenthal, Bruce Frost, Alison Doyle, Comsec TR Pty Ltd, The Stump Guy Tree Care, Sydney Olympic Park Authority, and all of the Discovery Centre volunteers
About BA 
Birds Australia volunteers set up a high definition video camera to monitor the nest of a pair of resident White-bellied Sea-Eagles, 15 metres (50 feet) above the ground, in a eucalyptus tree within a protected nature reserve of Sydney Olympic Park, Australia (