Life and death and lessons learned!

I just can't get enough of birds this time of year.

I have 5 nest web cams opened on my computer at once on a normal day and I love watching the babies being born and cared for by their parents. There is much joy in watching these fine adult birds nurture and care for their babies.

Along with the joy comes a bit of sorrow once in awhile. Two weeks ago one of the two eaglets at the Hornby Island nest became "attached" to his mother's underside. The mother Eagle did just about every thing she could do to dislodge "Echo." She bounced and hopped but she could not get him loose. She even took off and flew away for a few minutes, only to return with Echo still attached........a miracle in itself. Out of exhaustion, she dug a deeper hole in the nest and laid down to rest for awhile, when suddenly she got up and took off.

Approximately 100' from the nest, Echo fell.

This nest is 120' up in some kind of coniferous tree on Hornby Island B.C. Needless to say the viewers......myself included.....were stunned, shocked and extremely worried. The owner of the cams lives nearby and was also watching. When he saw what had happened, he rushed to the base of the tree. Echo was lying peacefully and was, as we all feared, dead.

This was a tragic loss of a beautiful eaglet. It took me days and days to overcome my sorrow.

After examination, there is still no explanation as to why Echo was stuck to the underside of his mother. The biologist at the Hancock Wildlife Foundation posted a short note and explained that he had seen a chick become stuck to a nest from a combination of feces and pine pitch, but had never seen it happen in the wild and said he found nothing unusual about this bird. No markings or residue of any kind.

I watched Echo hatch and then struggle to survive his first two weeks on this Earth. He would push his way forward to get his share of food provided when Mom or Dad arrived with one of their tasty offerings of fish, rat, possum or duck. He would peep and make a joyful trilling sound like no other eaglet I'd ever heard. He was tenacious and would do everything a baby Eagle should do. He'd push his tiny little self in closer to a parent when the skies overhead opened up with rain and gusting wind, competing for a warm spot with his sister.

I still mourn for Echo, and I'm so sorry his first and only "flight" was to his death.

Echo is buried in a shallow grave in the garden of a very special man.......Doug Hancock. He was lain to rest between a rhododendron and an azalea in view of the waters of the Straight of Georgia.

A fitting place!

We take risks when watching nature in the raw via web cams, and Echo proved that sometimes things don't go the way we wish they would. He had everything going for him until that tragic and mysterious event unfolded.

Another person on one of the Eagle cam threads posted this video, and I found it to be quite special, so I thought I'd share it with you.

In memory of Echo.