A Villager has been keeping a watchful eye over eagles who are new parents in The Villages.
Tom Lamb has been regularly photographing the eagles who have built their nest in the eagle preserve in the Village of Pine Ridge.
“I was at the location for about and hour and a half. During that time I observed the female eagle what appeared to me as feeding an eaglet, but I did not actually see any chicks,” Lamb said of a trip last week to the site.
Both mother and father appear to have been taking turns keeping the chicks warm. The male has been spotted flying in material such as Spanish Moss to shore up the nest during these recent brisk temperatures.
Florida has one of the densest concentrations of nesting bald eagles in the lower 48 states, with an estimated 1,500 nesting pairs. Concentrations of nesting territories are clustered around several significant lake, river and coastal systems throughout the state. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has monitored the population of nesting bald eagles in Florida since 1972.
The bald eagle was removed from the federal endangered species list and the FWC imperiled species list in 2007 and 2008, respectively. The bald eagle continues to be protected under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
