From April to mid-June, one of the eagles was always inside the nest, tending to the egg (then the chick). So the two parent eagles had not spent time together for more than two months outside the nest. But in mid-June, the chick was finally big enough for the eagles to leave it alone for a little bit, and they soared together for most of an afternoon above our house. They stayed close together for several hours airborne, before locking talons and falling several hundred feet to just above the tree tops before breaking loose and flying off out of sight. I didn't get the locked-talons fall on video, but witnessed it and thought they might not let go before hitting the trees.
Both eagles are missing a feather on their left wing, but Spot can be identified by the location of the missing feather being closer to the wing root, and Spot is the larger of the two....we still don't know if Spot is the male or female of the pair, but Spot has been around for all of our 9 years in this house, but Spot's mate we believe has recently changed.
Sitting above the nest.
Hard to see, but the chick is visible just above the rim of the nest between the Y-shaped branch in the middle of the picture....just the top of his fuzzy head is visible.
On my daily walk near the house, the road less traveled. We've named this tree the Strong Arm tree.
You can see why.
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