Does a Love Triangle Mean No New Bald Eagles at Duke Farms This Year?

In a page from a TV soap opera, two competing female bald eagles at Duke Farms resulted in a season with no eggs and no new eagles for the first time in 11 years.

A story on NJ.com tells of how this February a young female bald eagle started moving in on and trying to replace the current resident female eagle.

The nest has been quite productive in the past. Between 2005 and 2016, it produced 23 bald eagle chicks that were given tracking bands on the chicks when they were approximately five to six weeks old.

That rival female appeared just in time to interrupt the resident couple's mating behavior of courting, bonding and copulation.

And next year? 

The parenting couple are still around the nest and there is a good chance that they will nest in the area and breed next year. The nest was knocked down during Hurricane Sandy and rebuilt by the eagles who like the location on the Raritan River.

From the Eagle Cam at Duke Farms in Hillsborough, NJ.
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