Hilton Head’s young eaglets are thriving in the early days. Bonking ensues
The new eaglets starring on Hilton Head Island Land Trust’s eagle cam are thriving, Robin Storey, the president of the land trust said.
So far, the two eaglets seem to be well matched, Storey said. They’re certainly “bonking,” or fighting each other for food, but that’s a normal part of eagle development and prepares them for survival once they leave the nest.
“I was so happy when the second one came out, and the next morning he or she was going after the older sibling,” Storey said. “I went ‘Yes, you’re a feisty thing.’”
She said a lot of times the parents will feed the older eaglet first, and when he or she falls asleep they’ll feed the younger sibling.
The eaglets have a long road to adulthood. In early March, when the eaglets are about five weeks old, they’ll be able to start tearing up their food on their own. For now, the parents, Gracie and George, do it for them, according to the land trust.
By the end of March, they should be stretching their wings out when wind gusts pass through the nest. In the following weeks they’ll walk out onto branches and eventually take their first flight, or fledge, from the nest.
Long Road Ahead
While the eaglets on the Hilton Head Island camera so far appear to be doing well, they have a tough road ahead. Recent estimates show that approximately 70 percent of eaglets survive their first year of life. Eaglets often pass away due to congenital defects or a sibling will outcompete an eaglet for food.
This was the case in a nest on Dataw Island. Two eaglets hatched on a livestream eagle nest camera on the island. One died a few days after hatching. While the cause of death is uncertain, Anne Miglarese, the president of the Dataw Island Conservancy, says she believes the older eaglet was able to get more food than its younger sibling from their parent’s beak. The younger eaglet eventually starved.
“It was very hard to watch,” Miglarese said.
But so far, the eaglets on Hilton Head seem to both be eating all the nutritious fish, small mammals and birds they need to grow, Storey said.
Their odds now are greater than at many other points in their species’ history. Scientists consider the recovery of bald eagles following historic lows in the 1960s to be a conservation success story. Decades of decline started around the late nineteenth century, as common prey for Bald Eagles started to diminish alongside nesting habitat.
Then, after World War II, the pesticide DDT was introduced to manage mosquito populations. When bald eagles ate fish contaminated with DDT running off fields and into waterways, the eggs the birds laid had such thin shells that they broke easily during incubation and otherwise couldn’t hatch. In 1963, scientists only knew of 417 nesting Bald Eagle pairs.
Bans on DDT and actions taken under the Endangered Species Act allowed the population to rebound. The species was removed from the endangered and threatened species list in 2007. As of 2020 the population sits around 316,700 individual Bald Eagles.
Still, surging rates of bird flu have also taken their toll on bald eagle populations since the beginning of the current outbreak in 2022. In January 2025, two eaglets in a popular Fort Meyers nest camera had a series of seizures and later died due to the virus. Officials believe that they likely contracted the disease after consuming an infected bird.
Storey said she prefers to see fish in the “pantry,” or pile of food kept in the nest, rather than other animals due to the risk of bird flu. If the eaglets were to consume an animal infected with the virus, they could become sick themselves.
“They’re doing really well right at this point, I don’t have any concerns,” Storey said. “There’s things that are out of our control.”
