Watch live: Bald eagle in Pittsburgh's Hays neighborhood lays 1st egg

The bald eagle in Pittsburgh's Hays neighborhood laid her first egg of the season.

Webcams captured the Hays bird with an egg in her nest Tuesday morning, marking the sixth season in their third nest on the same steep hillside above the Monongahela River.

The Harmar birds, nesting high above Route 28, are expecting their first egg within the next several weeks.

The views from two closely placed live webcams at both the Hays and Harmar nests promise provide high-definition and close-up images.

The camera can enlarge the image of the egg to full-frame, allowing viewers to watch a chick "pip" or slowly perforate the eggshell to break out.

After four years of webcaming the Hays birds with a camera farther away, "The question has always been, 'Is that dirt on the egg, or a real pip?' " said Bill Powers, director of surveillance and environmental monitoring for CSE Corp., formerly known as PixController.

The Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania, which also operates a second live webcam on an eagle nest in Harmar with CSE, brought in Rob Kruljac of Richland, an arborist with Davey Tree Expert Service who volunteered in December to mount the webcams in Hays and Harmar closer to the nests.

The eagle couples will incubate their eggs for 35 days before hatch.

The birds typically lay two to three eggs, successively every several days.

The Hays birds are the first bald eagles to breed in Pittsburgh's city limits in more than 150 years.

Last year, a wind storm knocked out the bird's nest tree, which contained its first egg of the season.

But the birds built a new nest, laid a second egg and produced an eaglet known to some as the "Miracle on Carson Street."

That bird successfully fledged from the nest.

Mary Ann Thomas is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach her at 724-226-4691, mthomas@tribweb.com or via Twitter @MaThomas_Trib.