June 19, 2013
Golden Eagle Chick in Stillwater County, Montana

Jan's brother Jay is friends with the ranch manager of a ranch in Stillwater County, Montana, and we've been fortunate to visit the ranch several times. We've seen mule deer, white-tailed deer, wild turkey, and this year a golden eagle chick! We visited the golden eagle nest for the first time on May 17th on our way to Yellowstone National Park. The chick wasn't much more than a ball of white down, but it was starting to walk unsteadily around the nest, so it was about 15-18 days old. We visited the nest again on June 17th and 18th after visiting Yellowstone, and it was amazing how much the chick had grown! It was much more active than on our previous visit, and it seemed to like being behind the large branch between us and the nest, probably because that provided some shade and also privacy from the paparazzi. In this image it's about 47-50 days old and will likely fledge between 66 and 75 days old.