Egg breaks in Hays bald eagle nest
Nearly a month after an egg was spotted inside the popular Hays bald eagles’ nest via a live webcam, the egg broke.
According to a statement from the Audubon Society, an adult male eagle was seen incubating the egg as recently as 7 a.m. Tuesday morning, March 19. However, the eagle soon realized that the egg was broken.
“The adults have since stopped incubation and at this time there is no adult on the nest,” reads the statement from Audubon.
A Facebook post from PixCams, which operates the streaming camera pointed at the nest, outlined several reasons why the egg may have broken.
“There are multiple reasons that can cause an egg to become nonviable and collapse,” wrote PixCams. “The majority of reasons don't involve traumatic breakage, but rather internal processes during which the embryo failed at some point, or an egg that was never fertilized. We have no means of determining which of multiple reasons this might have occurred.”
According to the Audubon Society, this is the first year that this particular male eagle was in the Hays eagle pairing. The previous male eagle disappeared last year after partnering with the same female for over a decade to raise 20 eaglets.