Reality TV At Its Best

We are a family of 4. Currently, there is a window in our home that enables us to clearly watch the goings on of another family - a family of 5, to be precise. We feel so privileged to be able to observe how they live their family life and, in many ways, they're a lot like us.

For example, one parent stays home and looks after the kids while the other is out bringin' home the bacon; the kids whine and complain when they're hungry and are subsequently fed by a parent who has lovingly prepared a meal for them; we see them tucking their kids into bed; tidying up; doing home renos; giving birth; carrying out personal grooming routines; putting groceries away and generally providing for and protecting their kids.

There are some differences, though.

Firstly, the "bacon" isn't really bacon or any other packaged or even butchered meat product - it's freshly killed fish, rabbits or birds. The kids squak and cheep instead of whine. The lovingly prepared meal consists of a parent ripping small pieces of bloody flesh (lovingly?) off a carcass. The parents tuck their kids into bed by gathering them up, sitting on them and then nestling them down into a bed of grass by employing a kind of rocking motion (it's quite fascinating, really). For them, tidying up is moving grass and twigs around into a certain desired configuration. Home renovations are done with sticks and who-knows-what. Giving birth may have been a stretch... we'll call it hatching. The main grooming routine is preening. They put their "groceries" away by pulling the aforementioned carcasses over to one designated pantry/carcass area. And, finally, they protect their children by making sure they don't get eaten by crows while still in the egg and corralling young hatch-lings as to avoid death by falling... or rather landing, as it may be...

And also, they're eagles.

There are many different eagle-cams (cameras mounted in actual, wild eagles' nests) that you can stream live - LIVE! LIVE EAGLES! - and watch as they sit on their eggs and the eggs hatch and, well, I've already described examples of everything you can see. The window for the bald eagle-cam is almost always open on our computer so we can hang out with them all day long. If you're really obsessed you can even watch some of them at night when the camera goes into night vision mode.

We've had so much fun watching Mommy Eagle, Daddy Eagle and their three eaglets. It's like they're part of the family. Check out the eagles we've been watching here, but beware! You get so you don't want to miss anything!




Photo Credit: Dave Menke/US Fish and Wildlife Service