This is what the new eaglet looks like
The pair of eagles were faced with the possibility of having their mating season postponed after their nest had been washed away by heavy rains earlier in the year.
Despite the possibility at one point in time that their mating season might be suspended, the eagles stayed on track and now we finally have the first photo of their new eaglet.
Makatsa and Thulane refused to let the wrecking of the old nest in a storm hinder their mating plans as they began working on a new nest immediately.
Also Read: Black eagles continue to build new nest
The new nest was subsequently completed after only a couple of weeks of rebuilding.
The hard work put into getting the nest done in time for the mating season was not in vain, as it was officially announced in May that their first egg had been laid. This meant that Makatsa was set to spend 44 days on the nest incubating the egg, with the team from the Black Eagle Project Roodekrans (BEPR) predicting a mid-June hatching time for the egg.
Over the course of the incubation period, Makatsa spent the majority of her time in the nest caring for the egg, while Thulane was flying solo. Thulane did however also spend his fair share of time on the nest incubating the egg, granting Makatsa the chance to stretch her wings every now and then.
The BEPR team’s predictions proved to be spot-on when they obtained photographic evidence of the hatching of the egg on the morning of Monday, 18 June.
The first photos of the eaglet were unfortunately not of a good enough quality to distribute, but, thanks to the excellent photographic skills of Garth Heydenrych, we finally have a photo that’s of a good enough quality to use.
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