Harmar eagles are busy: Battling a red-tailed hawk, an intruding eagle and a gull; and raising 2 chicks

The Harmar bald eagles apparently have their hands — er, claws — full: They’re raising two chicks while warding off a red-tailed hawk and a visiting juvenile eagle. One of the Harmar eagles recently rebuffed a gull trying to steal its fish while in flight.

The Harmar birds are in their eighth year of nesting on a steep hillside that rises above Route 28 at the Hulton Bridge.

A local photographer, Gina G. Gilmore of Fox Chapel, documented two chicks in the nest last week. They are the couple’s 12th and 13th eaglets since they have been nesting in the area.

Unlike the Pittsburgh Hays bald eagle nest with the live webcam, the activity at the Harmar nest is documented by photographers and birdwatchers on the ground. Earlier, the Pennsylvania Game Commission confirmed the Harmar pair had eggs in the nest.

Gilmore has been checking the nest and was expecting to see the gray fuzzy heads of the chicks in the last two weeks, but she saw a whole lot more.

“The parents are busy bringing in fish and fending off predators like the hawks,” she said.

In just the past week, the Harmar eagles have escorted a juvenile eagle out of their territory and brushed off a swooping red-tailed hawk and a gull trying to steal one of the eagle’s fish, she said.

Although red-tailed hawks are only about one-third the size of a bald eagle, they are aggressive in their territory, said Brian Shema, operations director of the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania.

This was proven in 2013, when the hawks started going after the eagles at the Harmar nest.

Intruders into eagle territory are to be expected, according to the experts.

Since the eagles took over a red-tailed hawk’s nest when they arrived in Harmar, the eagles, now in their second nest on the same hillside, have been periodically harassed by the hawks.

Young bald eagles that are not nesting often will fly into other eagles’ territory, prompting the home birds to chase them out, according to Audubon.

Most people know gulls are opportunistic feeders that will take food wherever they find it.

So are eagles.

In years past, the Hays bald eagle webcam has captured footage of an eagle bringing a gull to the nest for dinner for its young.

To see more about the Harmar bald eagles, visit the Harmar Bald Eagles of Pittsburgh Facebook page.