Talk about a rough arrival.

A baby bald eagle, known as an eaglet, was born at Duke Farms at 11:30 a.m. Thursday. Almost immediately it had a big challenge in its brand new life.

It had to survive an ice storm. And it was all caught on camera.

If you advance this video to the 6-minute mark you’ll get your first glimpse of this eaglet breaking out if its shell. Then go to the 10:15 mark to get a full look at this cute little fuzzball.

Since 2008 there has been an Eagle Cam at the Hillsborough property. It has been live-streaming the nest, found by Duke Farms workers about 80 feet off the ground in an American Sycamore, ever since.

Diane Cook of the National Eagle Project praised the mother eagle saying, “She went up and (was) doing everything she could to keep her newly hatched chick and last egg warm and dry during the icy rain this morning. She did everything she could to keep a squirmy chick under wraps.”

So once the harsh ice storm passed the baby bald eagle was finally able to be fed. This was a big deal for its mom apparently because this particular adult eagle struggled in the past to feed her babies according to a story on list23.com.

This eaglet was the first to hatch of two eggs the bald eagle laid back in January 3 days apart. The second hasn’t hatched as of the time I’m writing this. You can always check out that live Eagle Cam to see if it’s there now.

Baby bald eagles remain in the nest for up to 12 weeks before they fully fledge and can leave.

Some other bald eagle fun facts:

They build the largest nest of any North American bird and nests have been found as deep as thirteen feet and as wide as eight feet.

Bald Eagles can fly as high as 10,000 feet.

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The largest live in Alaska where they can get up to 17 pounds.

In the wild they can live as long as 30 years.

Yes, Ben Franklin really didn’t care for bald eagles, saying the bald eagle “is a bird of bad moral character” and “too lazy to fish for himself.” Even though he sang the praises of turkeys over bald eagles he did not actually propose a turkey to represent the country. That part is said to be a myth.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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