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Time Has Come To Bid Adieu To Hays Eaglets

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- It's a front row seat to watch wildlife in action.

We watched them hatch and grow day by day, from cute little chicks to gangly adolescents; and so now, it's with mixed emotions that we're seeing them flying freely, ready to depart for lives of their own.

The three Hays eaglets defied the odds. All three surviving to fledge and now appear ready to fly away and start families of their own.

But if like a grown son or daughter who has become to accustomed to free room and board, mother and father eagle don't intend to give them a choice.

"If they don't move on on their own, the parents will let them know it's time to move on," said Gary Fujak, of the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

This week, mother eagle wasn't sharing the fish she caught with her offspring, and if they continue to hang around, father eagle will actually being chasing them away.

All of that means that the webcam that has given us a ringside seat to the eagles this year is focused on the proverbial empty nest. So, it will be coming down Aug. 19.

"There's no need to leave that hardware up there," said Fujak. "There's some maintenance issues and we just need to get it out of there because it's not doing anything."

But what a year; in none months the webcam attracted 3.4 million views by people all over the world. And the good news is, it will be up again in the spring in time for the next egg laying season.

But for now, we say goodbye to the three eaglets that so captivated us this year.

And so, while this chapter of the Hays eagles comes to end, come next spring there should be more eggs in the nest and a webcam there to capture them on the Mon River trail.

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