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Q&A Where do bald eagles go at night if not in their own nests?

I've recently learned of a local eagle cam and have been enjoying watching a pair of bald eagles and their three chicks. While I don't have access to many days of video to check (the site buffers ...

1 answer  ·  posted 2y ago by Monica Cellio‭  ·  last activity 2y ago by Pastychomper‭

Question bald-eagles
#1: Initial revision by user avatar Monica Cellio‭ · 2022-04-26T02:12:04Z (over 2 years ago)
Where do bald eagles go at night if not in their own nests?
I've recently learned of a local [eagle cam](http://aswp.org/pages/hays-nest) and have been enjoying watching a pair of bald eagles and their three chicks.  While I don't have access to many days of video to check (the site buffers 12 hours), I have noticed a pattern the past few nights that I'm curious about.

Throughout the night (or spot-checks, anyway; it's not like I'm watching all of it in real time), I've noticed that *one* of the adults is almost always present, but not both.  Usually it seems to be "standing guard" just outside the nest, like this:

![blurry screen-grab: three chicks sleeping in nest, adult on branch at edge facing away from the camera](https://outdoors.codidact.com/uploads/4wn63FVdAtVLxmp9nEGfTTXb)

The preferred position seems to be facing away from the camera, so even if the night-time video weren't low-res I can't tell if the bird seems alert or is sleeping.

Occasionally the adult is instead in the nest with the chicks:

![adult sitting up in middle of nest, awake as far as I can tell](https://outdoors.codidact.com/uploads/h4NrJuS1ct8gw8WHXQ3Gg9YT)

But it's always just one adult when I've checked, though if the other were nearby and just out of camera range, I wouldn't be able to tell.  During the daytime the adults don't seem to be reluctant to share the nest.

If it's not nearby, where does the other adult go?  Bald eagles are, I understand, diurnal, so I wouldn't expect it to be that active at night.  But when it's not active, wouldn't it "go home" to its nest?