Marilyn: Yes, that was very sad that someone killed the nest tree on purpose, a shame they didn't catch the culprit and prosecute him to the full extent of the law!!
Wow, those are really great photo's! The birds in your photo's aren't actually the Bald Eagle but rather Osprey's! I love watching them fly and swoop down to catch fish. We see them at the beach a lot and also around the neighborhood during the summer months. The Osprey is abundant here in Florida because of the great number of open water where they can catch fish. The Osprey grows to about 24", somewhat smaller than the Bald Eagle which can get to about 35" in size but from a distance their appearance is very similar to the Bald Eagle. We have an Osprey nest one street over from us but I'm assuming they are winter migrants because they haven't returned to the nest yet this year; maybe with the warmer winter temp's they stayed farther north this year? The Osprey is commonly called "Fish Hawk" because, like the Eagle they catch and eat a lot of fish. The Eagles are here in all but the hot summer months of July, August and September but the Ospreys nest in Florida year round. I took these photo's of juvenile Ospreys a couple of years ago; one in a local Wal-Mart parking lot and the other in Sam's Club parking lot where they build their nests atop light poles:
And, one in flight from my back deck:
