About the Golden Eagle Camera, FAQ, Donate

 Golden Eagle Camera

About the Golden Eagle Camera on Whychus Creek

Welcome to one of the very few live cameras (in the world) capturing the activity at a golden eagle nest.  Our location along beautiful Whychus Canyon near Sisters, Oregon has had a camera on a nest site for more than 15 years and the current operation, funded by the East Cascades Audubon Society has operated since 2015.  The eagle parents, Petra and Rocky, are using the nest again for the 12th year in a row.  Located several miles east of Sisters, Oregon along Whychus Creek, this Eagle Cam was the brainchild of Janet Zuelke and Forrest Babcock, who, at the time, owned the property across the canyon from the nest.  They built a gazebo to house the equipment, and engineered the optical system that is able to capture images from 900 or so feet across the canyon, and beam them out to the internet.

The land that the nest is on is owned by the Deschutes Land Trust and is managed as a wildlife preserve called Aspen Hollow Preserve. East Cascades Audubon Society funds the eagle cam with operation and maintenance provided by volunteers Jim Hammond (optics, camera control, website, eaglet rescue), Leslie Lawrence (current owner of camera site), and other volunteers.

Please help support the Golden Eagle camera! To make a donation towards the substantial cost of getting these images on the internet, please go to the East Cascades Bird Alliance donation page, and select the Golden Eagle Cam as the payment destination.

For another take on the history of the Golden Eagle Cam, see this article by local naturalist and friend of the Eagle Cam, Jim Anderson, in the Source Weekly. For an article by Jim Anderson about the rescue of Whychus in 2019, look here: https://nuggetnews.com/Content/Columns/Columns/Article/Baby-eagle-rescued/10/10/28311 A more recent article has been published in the Source Weekly: Watching the Nest | Outside Features | Bend | The Source Weekly – Bend, Oregon (bendsource.com)

Petra aks ‘Mombird’, soaring near nest
One of the fledglings from years past, ‘Skylar’ by name, just 36 hours after he left the nest
Spotting scopes trained on the nest
Lots of high-tech equipment, connected. in places, with duct tape! (2015)
Latest and greatest, most streamlined and FOV appropriate set-up! There is a cement pier sunk in the ground, and Jim fashioned a metal mounting pole for the new scope. This thing is solid!
Jim Hammond and Leslie Lawrence in the gazebo with the cam set-up.
Thanks to Jim Hammond for making this slide showing the location of the nest.
The first year that the cam was set-up, one of the fledglings fell out of the nest at five weeks of age, before it could fly. Forrest recovered the body and took this picture.
This is not one of ‘our’ eagles, but gives a good idea of scale. These birds have a 6-9 foot wing span!

FAQ

Q: How can I donate to ECBA to support this project:

A: To make a donation towards the substantial cost of getting these images on the internet, please go to the East Cascades Bird Alliance donation page, and select the Golden Eagle Cam as the payment destination.

Q: How do I get the video image to start when I see a still image or a black screen?

A: Click on the right pointing triangle in the center of the image under the “ivideon” logo or in the blue timeline.

Q: How do I look at the video at past times?

A:  For those not familiar with the ivideon features: you can click in the blue bar below the image to go to the time shown where you click and review the recorded video. For folks posting times of activities, you can use either time, the time on the time line or the time in the date and location heading in the image to refer to that activity. You can zoom in on the time line with the + and – buttons to the lower right of the image. You can click on the date bar on the lower left of the image to go to another day. When looking at a recording, you can click on “live” to get back to the live image. Sometimes we will pull video clips and post them on youtube but with 10 days of recording it won’t be necessary to do that as often as in the past.  You can start view video by clicking in the center of the image of anywhere on the blue timeline.

Q: Why do I see spinning dots and/or an atom animation on a black background instead of the eagles?

A: These mean the camera is up and the image is loading to your computer.  Try waiting a few minutes.  If that doesn’t work, then there may be bandwidth limitations on your end.  (If this is the case, you could test this by trying again at non-peak traffic hours, or contact your internet service provider to ask about increasing your bandwidth/speed.)

Q: Why is the image wavering?

A: As the sun heats up the canyon, air currents rise and cause visual disturbances.  (Recall from the “About” page that the camera and telescope are located over 900 feet from the nest!)  These effects are unavoidable during the day, but are greatly reduced or even absent by late afternoon.  

Donate

Though all the labor for running the eagle cam is provided by volunteers and the use of the equipment and camera site with the necessary access are donated for this ECBA project it still costs more than $100 a month to pay for the streaming service and bandwidth to the site’s rural location.  Please help support the Golden Eagle camera! To make a donation towards the substantial cost of getting these images on the internet, please go to the East Cascades Bird Alliance donation page, and select the Golden Eagle Cam as the payment destination.