Third bald eagle chick laid in the Decorah North nest has died

DN3 (center) was much smaller than its siblings, DN1 and DN2 (Photo courtesy of Raptor Resource Project)

The third bald eagle chick hatched at the "Decorah North" nest has died, according to Raptor Resource Project officials.  "Decorah North" is the second nest in the Decorah area to have a webcam set up by RRP.

It's the latest bad news for the Decorah bald eagles--earlier this spring at the other bald eagle webcam nest in Decorah--the one near the Trout Hatchery--the third egg laid never hatched.

Raptor Resource Project officials say they can't determine what caused "DN3's" death at the north nest, since there could have been multiple reasons.  "Certainly food availability, sibling aggression, and hypothermia all played a role," said RRP in a Facebook post.

In a blog post, Raptor Resource Project volunteers said, "DN3 may not have eaten yesterday and didn't eat much the day before that. It also didn't help that the weather was cold and damp."

The blog continued, "We suspect there is no one cause for DN3's death. The six-day difference between DN3 and its oldest sibling resulted in insurmountable developmental differences, including dominance interactions that DN3 always lost given its much smaller size, a resulting lack of food, and a lack of brooding before it was really able to thermoregulate on its own. Had the weather been warmer, DN3 might have been able to survive even given the shortage of food and dominance interactions with the older two, but all three together were too much."