Some background - JiaJia attends a pre-school called the River School on the National Conservation Training Center campus (of course now that I think of it, Laura went there too and Vince works on the campus so maybe it is a family thing...) One of the great things about the school is their emphasis on nature, which makes it all the more interesting that there is a bald eagle nest in plain view of the playground.
Some intrepid soul climbed up to the nest and put in a webcam which streams live into the pre-school classroom (it is also on the web at
http://www.fws.gov/nctc/cam/livevideo.html). It can be a bit hair raising to see the eagles in action (one very memorable day we got to see the mother eviscerate a rabbit to feed the babies!) but it is nature at its most basic and the kids really love it. Last spring the general manager of the facility set up the auditorium with the very big screen so the whole class could watch the chicks hatching.
So this year so far our pair of eagles has laid two eggs. There is some speculation that there might be a third but since I don't know much about eagle egg laying habits I can only repeat what I've heard and leave it to Tyler and Jane to tell me if this is even possible.
At any rate, we're all waiting for spring and the new babies, followed by many sightings of the parents teaching their children how to hunt. It is truly a sight to behold but not for the faint of heart.
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