Second eaglet emerges at Pittsburgh nest

PITTSBURGH — And then there were two: A second eaglet at the Pittsburgh Hays bald eagle nest hatched Sunday at 7:17 a.m., according to PixController and the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania.

This is the second eaglet to emerge from the historic Hays nest since Friday. The third egg is expected to hatch in the next several days.

The birds laid three eggs last month, which is typical for bald eagles. Laid several days apart, the eggs require about 35 days of incubation in their nest on a bluff high above the Monongahela River.

The first eaglet, a fuzzy gray chick with a voracious appetite, was active and fed a fish caught by his father on Saturday.

Expect fish to be the house special for the eaglets about 75 percent of the time, said Brian Shema, director of Conservation for the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania.

On Saturday, the mother eagle tore small pieces off the fish and both parents fed the eaglet.

"The eaglet looks healthy and is progressing as expected," Shema said. "It looked to be alert and happy when they fed it."

Bill Powers, CEO of PixController, which set up a live nest camera with the state Game Commission, said the first eaglet was almost standing up as it was fed on Saturday.

For most of the day, the chick was shielded from the light drizzle by its parents.

In about eight days (10 days from hatch), the first eaglet will develop its second coat of down feathers, according to the Audubon Society.

The final Hays egg was laid on Feb. 26, with an expected hatch date around April 2. It is only then that experts will know whether all of the eggs were viable.

This is the second nesting season of this eagle pair — the first bald eagles to successfully breed in the city in more than 150 years.

This article was written by Channel 11's news exchange partners at TribLIVE.

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