Wednesday, 8:22 p.m.
That's the hatch time confirmed by Southwest Florida Eagle Cam for the newest addition to the ongoing broods of Harriett and M15.
Now, more than a day after the first "pip", or break in the shell, of the raptor pair's first of two eggs was seen, Southwest Florida has a new baby eagle to watch.
The new eaglet will be known as E21, the 21st of the lineage.
At the North Fort Myers nest of the two American bald eagle breeding pair, the hatching drama had been unfolding since Tuesday morning when the pip was announced on the web site of Southwest Florida Eagle Cam.
The Facebook site of the Southwest Florida Eagle Cam announced the pip: "Early this morning on January 3rd, 2023 at 08:02:20am, the first pip was seen when M15 got up to reposition himself on the egg!" Pip pip hooray! This is the the first official view of the pip - it actually occurred earlier, but we have no way of knowing of the actual time it broke through the shell."
Thousands accessed the 24-hour web cam that keeps an eye on the eagles and watched as the pip slowly grew in size while the tiny eaglet inside the egg chipped away at the shell.
Harriett and M15 have been visually entertaining bird lovers and others for years via the internet, have been incubating two eggs at their Bayshore Road nest.
Harriet laid egg 1 on Nov. 29 at 6:09 p.m. and egg 2 Dec. 2 at 8:09 p.m.
Second egg arrives: Watch Harriet produce her second egg of 2022-2023
The site where the nest is situated is owned by Dick Pritchett Real Estate, also sponsor of the cameras livestreaming the pair, which began in 2012.
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