The egg is in the basket — a really, really big basket that is 6-feet in diameter and 5-feet deep.
Xcel Energy’s “Eagle Cam One” got a glimpse of a lone bald eagle egg — about twice the size of a chicken egg — in the massive nest at the Fort St. Vrain power plant near Platteville around 10 p.m. Monday. The arrival was first reported by the Fort St. Vrain Facebook page, where eagle fans track the progress of a mated pair of the majestic birds.
The massive nest is perched high in a cottonwood tree near the plant and since the camera was installed above the nest in 2003 it has recorded 33 eaglets hatched. Not all survived.
The camera was set up by Xcel Energy and Raptor Resource Project to help increase conservation awareness efforts and provide the public with opportunities to watch the birds.
The laying occurred right on schedule as eagles return to their nest in the fall and conduct nesting activities from roughly February to June, according to an Xcel news release. A majority of the laying history at the Platteville location has been recorded as taking place in the third week of February.
The female eagle was seen Thursday afternoon incubating her egg while fluffing nearby straw, hay, and grass in the nest. The male eagle appeared and she stepped off her egg for roughly 2 minutes before settling on it again. The pair tended to their nest about an hour later, using their beaks to move sticks around the perimeter.
The webcam is mostly monitored by bird watchers, but Xcel spokeswoman Michelle Aguayo said a few folks at the plant are also pretty avid about viewing the birds of prey.
The location is prime for the birds considering the amount of food nearby — the river systems where they hunt fish and turtles, and a nearby prairie dog colony.
The nest has been active for years, according to the release, with the Colorado Division of Wildlife banding young birds at the nest site each spring.
Protected by the Endangered Species Act until 2007, bald eagles’ overall numbers have grown to an estimated 143,000, increasing between 2003 and 2013 by an average 12 percent a year, federal data show. In Colorado in 2015, a federal census estimated there were 125 bald eagle nests, up from 51 in 2009.
