Watch the steel mill eagles live U.S. Steel and PixCams of Murrysville offer a live webcam online to view the nesting pair of bald eagles at the Irvin Works in West Mifflin. Visit PixCams or its YouTube channel to watch the cam.
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Workers at the U.S. Steel Works Irvin plant in West Mifflin last month successfully diverted a great horned owl that was pestering nesting bald eagles at their home on mill property.
Now they are celebrating the first eagle egg of the season. The female eagle delivered early Sunday evening.
“We are just thrilled that this eight-month project came to fruition,” said Don German, Irvin works plant manager.
The pair of bald eagles, named after two of the company’s Mon Valley Works mills — Claire (for Clairton) and Irvin — are in their third year of nesting on an undeveloped hillside below the Irvin plant along the Monongahela River. U.S. Steel partnered with PixCams of Murrysville this year to install a live webcam that is streaming the family life of the couple, including a great-horned owl knocking one of the eagles off its perch last month.
The nighttime predator hasn’t returned since steelworkers crafted owl nesting platforms away from the eagle nest.
In addition to the steelworkers, the world has been watching the steel mill eagles with viewers looking on from 16 countries, according to PixCams. A group of school kids in Nebraska also are participating in the live webcam’s chat room.
“People really like it,” German said.
Sunday’s first egg was “beautiful,” he said. The company and the public hope for another egg this week.
“The nesting bald eagles are bringing joy to so many people and we are happy to share the webcam with the workers, the community and the world,” he said.
Not only has the U.S. Steel eagle cam been great for the Pittsburgh community, but it has attracted current and former U.S. Steel employees and families, said Bill Powers, owner of PixCams.
“We see many come into chat daily and tell us how proud they are of the cam and company. In fact, our largest external traffic source is the ussteel.com website with over 30% of the web traffic,” he said.
During breaks or lunch, a worker might pull out a cellphone to view the live webcam and get a close-up of what is happening at the nest, said Deon Fontaine, a heavy equipment operator and truck driver at the Irvin Works for 22 years.
“It’s really the talk of the mill,” said Fontaine, who lives in West Mifflin.
Since Fontaine often works in the mill’s yard, he has been watching the eagles since they first arrived. “When it’s noisy when a train comes, they just sit there in the tree, not fazed by it,” he said.
Recently, German encouraged workers at the Mon Valley Works, through a newsletter reaching 3,000 workers, to join the online poll in the chat room on the day and time when the first egg arrived.
At the Mon Valley Works, a snippet from the live webcam feed is shown three times an hour on monitors at the mill entrance gates and in the mills’ canteens.
German would like some of the webcam feed available to U.S. Steel’s facilities nationwide.
Webcam watchers have already named some of the branches of the mighty sycamore hosting the eagle nest, German said.
For example, the “Kennywood branch” faces toward Kennywood. “But when it’s windy and an eagle is on that branch swaying back and forth – it looks like a ride,” he said, adding, “and it makes me seasick watching.”
The live webcam comes in handy when one of the eagles captures its lunch or dinner.
Robert Bevan, a worker who has been photographing the birds, was working at the mill’s pump house when one of the eagles flew close to him recently. “I was holding a rake at the time, wishing I had my camera instead,” he said.
He said he watched that eagle pluck something from the river banks and was able to quickly check the webcam and saw the bird caught a squirrel or a rabbit that he took back to the nest.
Bevan likes watching the eagles when he’s off work and at home.
“I’m sitting in my living room now looking at Claire,” he said.”It’s a dream come true.”
Mary Ann Thomas is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Mary by email at mthomas@triblive.com or via Twitter .
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Watch the steel mill eagles live U.S. Steel and PixCams of Murrysville offer a live webcam online to view the nesting pair of bald eagles at the Irvin Works in West Mifflin. Visit PixCams or its YouTube channel to watch the cam.
TribLIVE's Daily and Weekly email newsletters deliver the news you want and information you need, right to your inbox.
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