Officials Say Broken Bald Eagle Egg A Part Of Nature

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Bird lovers all over the world have followed the ups and downs of a pair of eagles nesting in Hays.

A live video camera is recording them, 24/7, for the second straight year. But this time, it's a different story.

Last year, "Eagle Cam" watchers saw the nesting pair in Hays raise three healthy eaglets.

WATCH LIVE! Click here to watch the eagle cam

But that's not how nature usually works. This past Saturday, the male eagle was seen removing the shells of a broken egg from this year's nest. The Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania says the egg may have cracked when the mother was moving it with her beak.

"Things happen in nature, and from time to time eggs are infertile or lost," says Audubon Executive Director Jim Bonner, at Beechwood Farms Nature Reserve. "Last year was almost unprecedented in everything going right. The fact that they laid three eggs, they incubated them, and fought off a raccooon and other intruders, that all three hatched, that they were all healthy, and that they were able to rear all three and find enough food, and that they all fledged."

So, what happened this year?

"Whether it was a trauma caused by the rolling process or something, we'll never know the exact cause. And they still have one egg left that we're all rooting for."

In any case, the Society doesn't have all its eggs in one nest. There's no camera in Harmar, on property owned by the Audubon Society. But they do know that eagle parents there are sitting on at least one egg.

As for the egg in Hays, Bonner says, "Incubation is usually about 35 days for the eagles, so we have about another week or so before we see some hatching."

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