The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has relaunched its popular EagleCam, more than a year after the bald eagle nest seen in the original version came crashing to the ground. The new EagleCam went live this week on YouTube and the department's website, the Washington Post reports. The camera is at the nest of a breeding pair of bald eagles, where viewers can "watch them restore their nest and bond for the coming breeding season," the department says. The original EagleCam was very popular, with hundreds of thousands of viewers in all 50 states and 127 countries watching a group of eagles, including fan favorites nicknamed Nancy and Beau, raise 15 chicks over the years.
"We can't wait to see the story of the new pair of eagles on the new EagleCam unfold," Lori Naumann, who has managed the program since it first went online in 2013, tells the Minnesota Star Tribune. Naumann says the nest is fairly quiet now but activity will pick up before February, when the female eagle is expected to lay two or three eggs. "We expect them to start bringing new branches and new nesting material into the nest over the next several months, when their courtship behavior will start ramping up," Naumann says, per the AP. "And when that happens, they actively build the nest together, showing their dedication to each other and their worthiness of being a partner."
Tragedy hit in April last year, when the nest in the original EagleCam, which was more than 20 years old and weighed around 2,000 pounds, fell to the ground after a rotting branch collapsed. The eaglet inside was killed. Naumann tells the Star Tribune that the nest in the new EagleCam is younger and not as big as the original, and in a healthier tree. She says that with the new EagleCam, the camera and microphone are closer to the nest, and hearing peeps from eaglets in a few months "would be the cherry on top." The stream from the old EagleCam is also live, and Nancy and Beau are sometimes seen in the area. (More bald eagle stories.)