Lord of the Flies

This young Bald eagle still can’t fly and is a prisoner in his own rotten mess. The flies have taken over propagating on all the readily available rotten corpses that line the nest. In an attempt to keep them away, he builds the necessary strength in his wings until he can finally leave the nest behind for good. Two days later, his hard work lifted him into the air and over to another tree. This was taken with a camera I had put into another tree and I was using a remote shutter release from a blind below watching for interesting behavior. This nest was very unique as it was only about 15 feet off the ground. However, as an arborist, I knew it was on borrowed time. It was in a dead poplar with a significant lean. This Spring it collapsed with two eggs in it, but they rebuilt another very quickly.