For one family of eagles on Lake Carmi, life on camera is the norm. And like the stars of any reality show, so too is drama — from prowling bobcats, to squabbles between siblings and feasts of catfish.
When Rick Willever, who owns a camp on Lake Carmi, set the camera up six years ago, he wasn’t sure what he’d find.
The retired computer scientist has always had a professional interest in video and worked with some neighbors and the state to see if they could get an inside look at a local eagle nest using a camera.
From that first camera hung in a tree, Willever’s eagle surveillance has grown into a full-fledged hobby with six different camera locations around the lake. And the same eagles have stuck around.
“We’ve certainly learned a lot about eagles over the last six years,” he says. “I mean, the fact that they keep coming back to the same nest, they mate for life, they typically only have one or two eggs — this particular pair has had three eggs four years in a row.”
Today, more than 200 people across Vermont and the country subscribe to Willever’s email updates, and more check in on the livestream to see the action in real time.
He says some people write to say they love getting a daily dose of the ambient sound and scenery from one of their favorite places. Others remember when bald eagles were endangered and rare, and welcome the inside look at their lives. The birds were removed from Vermont’s threatened and endangered species list in 2022. Today, there are at least 45 mated pairs in the state, according to Audubon Vermont.
For himself, Willever says he was surprised by the degree of sibling drama and poor teenage behavior at the nest.
Eaglets don’t have very good manners.Rick Willever
“Just this last weekend there were three eaglets on the island and one of the adults brought in some kind of food,” he says. “Eaglets don’t have very good manners, and they first pushed the mom or dad out of the way and then the three of them skirmished over whatever it was, quite a bit.”
But ultimately, it’s the fact that the same mated pair keep returning to the same place year over year to raise their young that grabbed his attention.
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Over the years, Willever has enlisted help from neighbors, a local arborist service, a telephone and internet provider and local landowners to keep the cameras running.
With their help, he recently expanded to put a sixth camera on a small island in the middle of the lake, equipped with a solar panel and electronics to send the feed back to his cabin.
Willever says he plans to keep running the cameras for as long as people keep watching the eagles, and as long as he has help from his neighbors.
Eagle cam videos courtesy of Rick Willever.
