Decorah Eagle Update 2014: Watch Mom Lay First Egg, D18 [VIDEO]

Some eggciting news was announced today! The first Decorah eagle mother laid an egg on Sunday, the Raptor’s Research Project wrote on Facebook. The season has officially started!

The RRP listed three different videos on their website so followers could watch the mother lay egg #18, thanks to YouTube users eaglewhisperer18; who has the fly-in, mocha mama; who has labor and egg drop, and dragonlainey; who has a full video.

After being posted on their Facebook page for an hour, the news of the mother laying her first egg nearly garnered 4,000 likes, 2,000 shares and then generated hundreds of comments from their following.

Some people said they couldn’t clearly see the egg in some of the comments, but in the video from eaglewisperer18, there is a good view of the egg at 4:51. The mother eagle stands up from her nest, begins to walk around, and the first egg of the season can be seen below her.

The egg has been labeled D18. Even though it’s the first of the season, it’s the eighteenth egg to be laid in total since the RRP has been following the Decorah eagles in Iowa.

Thanks to the RRP, bird lovers are able to observe eagles as they build their nests, lay their eggs and then ultimately (and hopefully) when they start to pip through their shell nearly a month later and gasp for their first breaths. More than 85,000 people follow the page, demonstrating how well the RRP has been able to capture the attention of thousands of Facebook users.

The RRP was started in 1988 and they specialize in the preservation of rare birds like falcons, eagles, ospreys, hawks, and owls. They also “breeding populations of these raptors by creating, improving, and maintaining nests and nest sites.” According to their Facebook page, the Decorah EagleCam is the most watched live stream, with over 250 million views.

The video of the D18 being laid has been posted below: