Eagle Chick

This is Yellowstone's Madison River eagle chick for the year. I don't know if they only laid one egg or if this is the only chick that survived, but there's only one this year. As you probably know, eagles don't get their white heads and tails until they're about 4 years old. They can hide better that way, so it helps them survive to maturity. We had the opportunity to observe the eagle family several times while we were in Yellowstone on vacation last week. The chick, which is 3-6 months old, is nearly as big as the parents & is a very scrappy little critter. The parents are still hunting for it, but if they come back to try to eat some of the food, which they caught, the chick tries to run them off. It doesn't succeed, but it tries. In this picture, it was sitting in the tree waiting for its' parents to catch some fish. As you can see, it was squawking at them. In addition to being scrappy, it's also noisy and impatient. I guess it has to be that way to survive, though. Anyway, we enjoyed watching them and got several good pictures. I hope you enjoy the pictures almost as much as we enjoyed watching the activities of these wonderful birds. I've posted several pics on my web site, but will be adding more, so be sure to check back often.