The tem­per­a­ture is about to hit zero in my part of Penn­syl­va­nia. Who knew it is eagle nest­ing time? Not me, until I noticed an arti­cle about a near­by eagle nest with an eagle cam mount­ed to see all the eagle’s inti­mate moments. Lay­ing egg one? Got that. Egg two? You bet. I just checked the eagle cam and saw one of the eagles stand­ing by, watch­ing the eggs, before she (or he—they take turns) set­tled back down.

I also learned a lit­tle bit about eagles and their eggs. Cold as it is, it evi­dent­ly does­n’t hurt the eggs to be uncov­ered for ten or so min­utes. In fact, that keeps them from being over­heat­ed. Anoth­er fact—it takes thir­ty-five days for an egg to hatch.

Here’s a few links to fol­low our local eagles, named Lib­er­ty and Free­dom by news­pa­per read­ers. That’s unof­fi­cial, since the Penn­syl­va­nia Game Com­mis­sion, whose cam­era is livestream­ing these eagles and their nest, does not “per­son­i­fy wildlife.” (I should imag­ine the eagles are unaware of these names as well.)

The Valen­tine’s Day love story.

The first egg. The sec­ond egg.

And, since every sto­ry should have a bit of con­tro­ver­sy—were the eagles scared off the nest?

And here’s the eagle cam, so you can watch at any time. Plan on view­ing on March 21, the esti­mat­ed time for the first hatching.

Are there any eagle cams near you? Are there any oth­er ani­mals watched by camera?