EagleWatch volunteer Heather Centanni knows how much fun it is to monitor Bald Eagle nests: waiting patiently for signs of nesting, the anticipation of babies hatching, and the drama of watching them grow and fledge. She has monitored a nest near her house for the past 13 years, and as the life enrichment director at Hawthorne Inn Assisted Living, she shares her passion for eagle monitoring with the residents. Now, she’s helping a small group of residents monitor a nest that sits across the street from the Lakeland assisted living community.

A self-described "bird nerd" since the age of ten, Centanni is a longtime viewer of the popular Southwest Florida Eagle Cam, an online feed of a nest in Fort Myers. Last year, she started putting the live feed on the large television in the activity room of the community, and residents gathered to watch Bald Eagles M15 and F23 over the course of the 2023-24 nesting season. “I’m always looking for new things for my residents to do,” Centanni says. “I had a roomful of folks watching the cam throughout the day, from egg laying to fledge.”

Once the nest’s lone surviving fledgling of the season left the nest, Centanni kept the residents engaged with other cameras, including Barred Owl, American Kestrel, and Osprey nests via Cornell Lab. Then, she had the idea to take her residents’ interest even further.

Near Hawthorne Inn Lakeland is a nest that sits atop a cell tower. Because several of the residents showed so much interest in the nest camera, Centanni asked if any of them might like to begin monitoring a nest. A small group of women signed up. “It was officially on our calendars every Tuesday morning, but we also checked on them periodically each day of the week,” Centanni says. She taught the women what to look for when checking on the nest, and she enters their findings to the EagleWatch database after each visit.

The nest was not successful last season, but Centanni says her team is undeterred by that outcome. They’re gearing up for the upcoming nesting season, which officially begins in mid-October, and they already have a reason to be excited: they have observed one of the nest’s adults on the cell tower in the last several weeks.