PITTSBURGH — The first of three Bald Eagle eggs expected to hatch this week in a nest along the Monongahela River has produced a live chick. The egg, which was laid on Feb. 17, hatched at 12:37 a.m. today.

The pair of bald eagles nesting along the Monongahela River in the Hays neighborhood of Pittsburgh fed the chick its first meal — a fish that appeared to be a small bluegill — about 9:15 a.m., said Bill Powers, president of PixController, which provides a video livestream of the eagle's nest.

That video can be seen on the Butler Eagle website at

www.butlereagle.com.He said the pair's second egg, laid on Feb. 20, could hatch as soon as Tuesday and a third egg in the nest could hatch by this weekend. The average incubation period for Bald Eagle eggs is 35 days, Powers said.Eaglets typically spend at least two months in the nest.Powers said that having three chicks at one time could be considered unusual for eagles in areas where there is more competition for food.“I'm not sure that it's unusual for these eagles in this area“because there's an abundance of food sources,” Powers said.An eagle's diet is almost entirely fish, but the bird will eat other animals as well, Powers said.The hatching has produced a spike of livestream viewers, Powers said. Late this morning about 4,000 people were watching the eagles through PixController's camera.Powers called the successful hatching a nice rebound after the incubation of two eagle eggs was unsuccessful last year.There was initially some question whether the egg that hatched today was viable because of a brownish tint to its shell seen after it was laid. Powers said its now believed that coloring came from oak leaves the eagles used to line the bottom of their nest.“With last year's failure and this year's success, it puts nature in perspective that anything can happen,” Powers said.

<a href="http://assets.butlereagle.com/piteagle/index.html" target="_blank">Check out the live video stream here.</a>