Webcam to keep an eagle eye on Fota’s Easter chick
Staff at the 70-acre Co Cork park are making plans to install a webcam trained on the nest where the healthy white-tailed sea eagle chick was successfully hatched last week.
And images from the nest will be streamed live on the internet.
It is the first white-tailed sea eagle born at the park in almost three years.
They are extremely rare birds and are on the endangered species list.
They are slow to breed in captivity and Fota’s long-established breeding pair, Conor and Maeve, have produced just two chicks in the last 10 years — both of which have been sent to European breeding programmes.
Park staff had been waiting anxiously for the last five weeks as Maeve incubated an egg. And they think the chick hatched last Saturday week.
They haven’t been able to get close enough to the as-yet-to-be-named chick to determine its sex.
Park director Sean McKeown said: “Staff here have a particular fondness for Conor and Maeve.
“It is hard to breed this kind of eagle and we will be monitoring the new chicks’ progress around-the-clock for next few weeks.”
It is hoped that the images will be broadcast live on the park’s website this week.
The new chick, which is expected to fledge in about 10 weeks, has hatched just in time to enjoy a new expanded enclosure.
* www.fotawildlife.ie
