It’s been a winter of firsts for Massive Bear bald eagles Jackie and Shadow.
The pair welcomed a uncommon third egg to their clutch in late January. Then the extreme storm that lashed Southern California final week led Jackie to hunker down for 62 hours straight to guard her little household — at occasions fully lined in snow.
Now “pip watch” — the web vigil for the primary holes eaglets make of their shells — is simply across the nook, and devoted followers of the web-cam stars are ready to see how the eggs have fared.
Jackie’s stint shielding her eggs from the storm made nationwide information, with video displaying her poking her head by the snow heaped on the 5-foot-wide nest that sways excessive in a pine tree above Massive Bear Lake.
Generally, “she’s the one one she trusts,” mentioned Sandy Steers, biologist and longtime government director of Associates of Massive Bear Valley. However even for a mother as devoted as Jackie, staying on the nest for 62 uninterrupted hours was a feat. Steers mentioned the final such stretch occurred a few years in the past and topped out at 37 hours.
Steers and the Associates of Massive Bear Valley have been monitoring the resident bald eagles for almost a decade by way of a solar-powered net cam. It’s lively year-round.
“We’ve got three individuals who function the digital camera,” Steers mentioned, “together with one in Italy who operates it when everyone right here is asleep.”
Jackie and Shadow have drawn a faithful following, and Steers believes their personalities hold viewers tuning in. “They’re superb and hilarious,” she mentioned. “You possibly can inform after they’re arguing with one another; you may inform after they’re lovey-dovey.”
Shadow is “somewhat mischievous,” which she says is a pleasant stability for Jackie, who “may be very severe and in cost.”
Jackie was severe final week when the storm — which hit Southern California laborious with rain and mudslides and damaging winds — introduced mounds of snow to the San Bernardino Mountains.
“When the climate is dangerous,” Steers mentioned, “she is not going to get off the eggs besides to roll them and switch round and lie again down.”
She didn’t permit Shadow to spell her even when he known as out to her, Steers mentioned. She gave the impression to be telling him, “I’m wonderful however not but — keep away,” she added. The feminine bald eagle is bigger than the male, so “they’ll unfold out throughout the nest and provides it extra safety.”
As soon as the climate calmed and the solar got here out, Shadow “nonetheless needed to wait 10 or quarter-hour.”
Now followers are simply ready for pip watch. Starting Feb. 29, eagle-eyed viewers will probably be searching for any signal the chicks are breaking by their shells.
Steers expects web-cam viewership to surge, simply because it did when Jackie laid her eggs in late January and hundreds tuned in. As followers develop into invested within the couple and their eggs, heartbreak is at all times attainable.
Previously, Jackie and Shadow have misplaced eggs which have been nonviable, and a few have been eaten by ravens. As soon as hatched, a juvenile bald eagle has lower than a 50% likelihood of surviving its first 12 months of life, based on the American Eagle Basis.
However hopes are excessive.
As soon as pip watch begins, Steers mentioned, “each little speck of mud, everyone’s questioning, is {that a} pip? … We’ll attempt to zoom in” to search for indicators of a shell breaking open.
