Trempealeau Bald Eagle Nest, Wisconsin Live Cam

A camera high in a white pine in Trempealeau, Wisconsin, looks into a bald eagle nest above the Mississippi River. Below the bowl of sticks and pine needles lie a house with a grey roof, a lawn and a railway line, with the wide river beyond.

Trempealeau is a small village on the Wisconsin bank of the Upper Mississippi, about 25 kilometres upstream of La Crosse. The nest is on private land, about 21 metres up. Bald eagles have raised young here in recent seasons; eggs are laid in late winter and the eaglets fledge in early summer. Outside the breeding season the nest often stands empty.

The camera is fixed in the tree and looks down past the rim of the nest towards the river. About half a kilometre away, Lock and Dam 6 crosses the channel, and towboats with barges wait at its lock. Wooded bluffs on the Minnesota shore close off the horizon.