As winter finally begins to relinquish its grip on northern Minnesota and I am able to open my own windows to the sounds of nature, I have been checking in with the Explore livecams less frequently and for shorter durations.  Today is day twelve since Dad Decorah went missing from the nest at the Decorah Eagles Cam in Decorah, Iowa provided in partnership with The Raptor Resource Project (RRP) in Decorah, and while the camera’s community continues to hold out hope it is safe to say that nature is taking its course.

The unidentified male eagle (UME) has been persistent in what only looks like his courtship of Mom Decorah.  The UME has been respectful of her wishes and the nest while trying to win her over, and seems to pose no threat to Mom and the eaglets.  The UME has even been witnessed helping defend the nest from a third eagle – another adult male who has also been confirmed to not be Dad – while he continues to aid in defense against other intruders as well.  To my knowledge, and from the reports of the RRP researchers, camera moderators, and other viewers of the camera’s community, the UME has not delivered any fish for Mom or the eaglets, but Mom has also been insistent that he not invade her nest just yet.  However, she has been witnessed – on camera and by observers on the ground – to gradually be more accepting of his companionship.

When referring to the dynamic situation unfolding at the nest since the disappearance of Dad and the relationship between Mom Decorah and the UME, Sherri Elliot from the RRP continues to remind the camera’s community that:

“We never doubted Mom’s abilities to carry on in Dad’s absence, but she continues to amaze and astound us with formidable tenacity and strength of purpose, nurturing and providing for her little’s while keeping interlopers away. Despite what each of our own personal opinions are about the Unidentified Male Eagle (UME) who is doggedly determined to win her over, he has shown he’s capable of being a strong-arm to protect her. So far there seems to be a mutual acceptance by both, or tolerated boundaries, but Mom continues to voice her displeasure if he comes too close to her dividing line on the nest. Ultimately this will be Mom’s decision, and only her opinion counts as to ‘when’ and ‘if’ that changes.”

Meanwhile, Mom and Dad Decorah’s three eaglets, D29, D30, and D31, are nearly one month old and doing fabulous as they are now “about 1 ft tall or more, with nearly 2 ft. wingspans [in] what I affectionately refer to as their 5 lb bag of sugar stage” (Sherri Elliot, RRP).

Last Thursday the RRP made this announcement as well:

“We will be holding a remembrance of Dad Decorah on our Facebook page on Wednesday, May 2nd. We will open the page that day so watchers can post memories, poems, stories, and artwork of our beloved Dad. In the meantime, we will be watching Mom and the eaglets. She has been doing a wonderful job of caring for and protecting her eaglets in Dad’s absence, and we wish for nothing but the best for all of them.”

Logical reasoning suggests that this period of transition has been even more stressful on the researchers at the RRP than it has been for the camera’s community as they continue to be bombarded with inquiries pertaining to the unscripted situation provided by nature under the scope of our humanizing scrutiny.  Even though nature has provided us with no definitive answers as to the whereabouts or story behind Dad’s disappearance, offering the opportunity for a memorial service of sorts will help bring closure for some as nature transitions to the next chapter and hopefully alleviate emotional stress for everyone involved.

Meanwhile, news from some of the other Explore cameras I’ve mentioned in the past couple weeks includes this announcement from the Institute for Wildlife Studies (IWS) in Arcata, California about the Sauces Bald Eagles Cam on Santa Cruz Island, California provided in partnership with Channel Islands National Park where the three eaglets are nearly seven weeks old:

“Due to predicted high winds at the west end of Santa Cruz Island today, we will not be banding at Fraser Point or Sauces today. We will band at Fraser Point Tuesday morning and at Sauces Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning, depending on wind speed.”

The banding for the single six-week-old eaglet at the West End Bald Eagle Cam on Catalina Island, California provided in partnership with the IWS is estimated to take place sometime in the next two weeks.

And just today Explore and the Owl Research Institute in Charlo, Montana established a new Great Gray Owl Nest livecam in addition to the one they had established at the waiting tree (as my two-year-old son literally just climbed in my lap and asked “Owl?” as I wrote this paragraph).  Given the newness of this camera, background information is limited, but the initial post from the Explore moderator states:

“This nest is located in Mission Valley, Montana. While we are not sure how many eggs are on the nest, Momma has been nesting for 3-4 weeks and hatching should be anytime (if they haven’t hatched already).”

One final note about the camera community of the original Great Gray Owl Nest livecam is that they have expressed their desire to have the camera at what is now referred to as the waiting tree left functioning even though it appears no active nest will be established there this year.  For some, their devotion to that window into the forest has built a bond between them as much as it draws them to that spot in the wilderness.  While others take comfort in knowing that the bond built between them will carry over into the new camera where they will watch and listen to another miracle of nature.

For me, this began as just an audible enhancement for reflection while I researched and analyzed (among other subjects) methods of electronic rhetoric in our stewardship of wilderness.  What I didn’t expect to find was a dynamic interaction between nature, the non-profit research and communication organizations that brought this new type of education to the masses, and the interpersonal relationships built between the members of the camera communities.  Nor did I expect to be able to draw from these observations a relationship between the dynamic I have found here through Explore’s cameras to the various dynamics playing out between the actual rhetors who argue their interpretation in the stewardship of wilderness.  However, the longer I listened to sounds of nature emerging from beyond the scope of the camera while observing the relationship limits the camera provides and relationships it builds between members of the community, the more I began to realize I was watching the stewardship of wilderness unfolding before my eyes through a portal into the forest – a portal into nature.  Nature is the implied rhetor – a rhetor that never speaks a word in indirect argument.  As an audience, we become the actual rhetors who attempt to persuade others our perception of preservation and conservation in direct argument.  Because we are surrounded by nature, we are all part of the audience.  We witness the effects of our arguments when those actions are reflected in the wilderness.  Therefore, the kairotic situation, like nature, is constantly evolving.  While our presuppositions of what wilderness means to us as a society in a cultural context continue to evolve, the deliberative discourse is constantly evolving as well because of the judicial discourse ingrained in our evaluation of nature’s response to the effects of past and previous arguments.  The actual rhetor depends on the ethos of wilderness to play on the pathos of their audience in their attachment to wilderness in order to develop the most powerful statement in logos for their particular goals in stewardship.  Our perceptions of nature and our personal relationship with wilderness dictate how our society continues to evolve.  Are we listening to what this non-verbal implied rhetor is telling us?  As I have found, the more we listen, the more we will hear; and if we hear, it will allow us to see; not only persuading our perception of nature, but also allowing us to envision beyond the periphery.

As I began to stray away from the waiting tree in search of more sounds of nature emerging from the other Explore.org nest cams, I spent some time listening at the Sauces Bald Eagles Cam on Santa Cruz Island, California provided in partnership with Channel Islands National Park (CINP), and the West End Bald Eagle Cam on Catalina Island, California provided in partnership with the Institute for Wildlife Studies (IWS)in Arcata, California.  The parents in the Sauces nest are raising three eaglets, and the West End parents are raising a single eaglet – which all hatched within a week of each other in the middle of March.  The West End nest provides some amazing views of the the island and ocean, and the struggle for pecking order between the three at Sauces has been interesting to watch because of the sneaky moves the youngest would have to make to get its share.  Although all has been going well at those nests, they can be a little difficult to listen into at times because of the Santa Ana winds and the Pacific Ocean breezes that thunder through the microphone and the increasing demands of the eaglets.

So I started to listen into the Decorah Eagles Cam in Decorah, Iowa provided in partnership with The Raptor Resource Project (RRP) in Decorah, where the sounds of nature were usually a little less intense.  Although it is a much more urban setting than the previous three cameras to which I have listened (the nest also overlooks an intersection, walking and bike paths, and other obvious clues of civilization), the migratory flyway near the Mississippi River produces rhythms of nature that seem to blend well with the human interruptions in their beneficial location.  The nest is strategically placed overlooking the spring-fed Trout Creek and the Decorah Trout Hatchery, where the eagles find easy fishing in the hatchery’s retention pond.   The location boasts three cameras, two at the nest and one overlooking the retention pond.  Plus, this nest has quite the history.  Mom and Dad Decorah – as they are affectionately known – have successfully fledged 28 eaglets from this area since 2008 – and Dad Decorah had been using this nest are since at least 2002.  This was Dad Decorah’s fourth nest during his time in this area – two of the previous three had been destroyed by storms while the other was abandoned.  Researchers from the RRP built a “starter nest” in the current nest location in hopes of encouraging Mom and Dad Decorah to take it over and build upon it after their previous nest had been destroyed in a storm in 2015.  Judging by the up to 4000+ viewers looking into the nest at any given time, this has been one of Explore’s most popular cameras, if not the most popular one, during my short time listening to the sounds of nature on Explore’s cams.  In addition there were three new reasons for viewers to tune in: three newly hatched eaglets beginning to emerge more and more each day; eaglets 29, 30, and 31.

What I hadn’t bargained for was the high drama that was about to ensue.  A spring snowstorm deposited several inches of wet snow on the area on April 18th.  While Mom and Dad Decorah worked together to keep the eaglets warm and fed, the female at the Decorah North Nest – another Explore cam provided in partnership with the RRP – struggled to just keep her head above the snow while she incubated two eggs that were her second clutch within weeks of her first clutch failing.  However, the difficult reality of nature was only just beginning.  Sometime late on the evening of April 18th, Dad Decorah left the nest presumably to roost near the nest where he could protect his family from threats of intruders – such as other birds of prey including other bald eagles.  He has not been seen since.

While the Decorah Eagles camera community began to fear the worst, the RRP started searching.  The longer he was gone the greater the speculation came – in all scenarios, and the crowd of viewers has grown steadily as well with everyone wondering what happened to Dad.  Speculation that included everything from heart attack (because Dad was no spring chicken) to kidnapping by humans, including everything in between: frostbite, sickness or injury, car collision, electrocution by power line, shot by humans.  But what seemed like the two most likely scenarios were that Dad had ventured off somewhere to hunt for food for his family after the late snow (after all he had pulled the same disappearing act last year for two days), or he had been run off or killed by a competitor bald eagle in a territorial dispute.  Then, there has been the speculation of whether Mom will be able to provide for three voracious eaglets, and be able to protect the nest from intruders and defend from other predators.  She has seemed apprehensive to leave the nest.  She has been calling what seems like constantly, presumably calling for Dad.  But then Mom did something that astonished her biggest believers as well as her harshest doubters: on Monday afternoon she landed swiftly back in the nest after a short fishing excursion with a two fish delivery – one in each of her talons, both still alive and flopping!  The Decorah Eagles camera community exploded with excitement and relief.

As of this post, this is day six Dad Decorah has been gone, and to make matters even more complicated an unidentified male eagle (UME) has entered the drama.  The UME’s presence has fed the speculation like winds feed a wildfire.  Was he somehow involved in Dad’s disappearance?  Was this a younger, stronger male who coveted this prime nesting area?  After all, so far he has posed little threat to Mom other than invading the nest tree – which he is doing with greater frequency and she has been apprehensively allowing him to inch closer – but nowhere near the nest yet.  In the days since his disappearance, the RRP has conducted extensive searches with volunteers from the community – including drones and the local fire department, and they have reached out to the surrounding communities as well as raptor rehabilitation centers, veterinarians, and wildlife officials to be on the lookout for Dad.  What they know is that Dad showed no signs of sickness or injury when he was last seen, and they have found no evidence to suggest he has met his demise other than he is gone.  They have found no evidence of human interference, and they have repeatedly reminded those concerned for the health of the eaglets in the camera’s community that they will not interfere with the eaglets and let nature take its course saying, “we all have the opportunity to witness nature unscripted and unedited.”

What the RRP has continued to stress is that this is nature at its purest, and we are only here to watch and learn despite some viewers concerns for the “safety” of the eaglets.  What’s strange is in this day and age of technology we have opened a window where wilderness and the secrets it holds can be viewed from anywhere at any time.  The RRP has had to remind the community several times to be kind to each other because emotions are running high in the days since Dad disappeared.  Speculation, questions, and emotions have been running rampant at times, especially when an incident occurs off screen – beyond the window.  Even in this location where there are three cameras, the argument from the viewers perspective visually remains in the two-dimensional tunnel view of the camera that is in operation at that particular moment.  The sounds of nature seep in from beyond the border of the screen, but off no explanation and very little evidence for interpretation.  Yet, the audience members continue to speculate trying to create their own version of what has happened and what is happening.  Human emotions have been projected onto nature, and the audience is reminded again and again that the eagles know.  Moderators have looked for support from the researchers to reassure the audience, and have also turned to the more experienced and rational set of viewers to aid with “self-moderation” in the influx of concern for Decorah’s Eagles.  Researchers in response have asked the audience that they remain respectful of everyone during this stressful time of emotion, and only post positive thoughts about “their” eagles.  And when the drama takes another turn, the researchers, moderators, and self-moderators continue to remind everyone to “Trust the Eagles!”