Most wildlife webcams show you views of empty clearings and, if you're really lucky, a fleeting glimpse of the creature in question as it races by. But here's one trained on some actual action: bald eagles feeding their young [1]. The eagle-cam's stars are a pair of regal birds in Maine that built their nest in late February, began incubating eggs in early March, and started tending to their hatchlings in mid-April.

Though it's hard to get the video to load (apparently only a certain number of people can watch the video feed at one time), there's a still photo that refreshes twice a minute, which is the next best thing to video. Watch as the adult birds carry food to their still-fuzzy babies, who have a pretty swank nest setup at the edge of the water.

An accompanying eagle blog [2] on a companion web site tells the story of the eagle family's exciting last few months. The National Wildlife Federation's bald eagle pages [3] are another good stomping ground for facts and figures about the national bird, the poster child for the success of the Endangered Species Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is in the process of trying to delist bald eagles (meaning the species has recovered sufficiently to no longer be considered "threatened" with extinction), though the public comment period [4] goes for another two weeks.

Bald eagle numbers dropped precipitously throughout the late 1800s and much of the 20th century, victims of hunting, habitat loss, and later DDT. But in recent years they've been making a stunning comeback and are now commonly seen in many areas, including Alaska. Bald eagles mate for life.

Photo credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [5]