{"id":132637,"date":"2025-09-04T16:21:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T16:21:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/132637\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T16:21:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T16:21:06","slug":"was-that-young-bald-eagle-visiting-jackie-and-shadows-nest-their-baby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/132637\/","title":{"rendered":"Was that young bald eagle visiting Jackie and Shadow’s nest their baby?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When bald eagle power couple Jackie and Shadow\u2019s two baby girls flew their Big Bear nest earlier this summer, it was bittersweet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thousands of adoring fans had watched them hatch<\/a> on a 24-hour webcam<\/a> that monitors the family and now they were growing up \u2014 fast. <\/p>\n

But one of the internet-famous youngsters, Gizmo, may have just dropped by her childhood home, an unusual occurrence for an eagle of nearly six months.<\/p>\n

A young eagle with several similarities to Gizmo hunkered down last Wednesday night on the couple\u2019s favorite roost tree and was still hanging around the following morning, according to Friends of Big Bear Valley<\/a>, a nonprofit that operates the livestream.<\/p>\n

The juvenile then flew off to Jackie and Shadow\u2019s nest in a Jeffrey pine tree overlooking Big Bear Lake, where a camera offered a closer view of the raptor. As the youngster curiously mulled about, moving sticks around, some conspicuous features became clear.<\/p>\n

Like Gizmo, this eagle had a dark tail with hardly any white feathers, said Sandy Steers, executive director of Friends of Big Bear Valley. The corners of its mouth, called the gape, stopped around the middle of its eyes and turned up, which someone described as a \u201cMona Lisa smile,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

After offloading a \u201cpoop shot,\u201d the eagle flew off \u2014 revealing a gap in the feathers on the trailing edge of its left wing, Steers wrote in a Facebook post<\/a> about the incident. The feature, which Gizmo had, was also visible when what was believed to be the same raptor ferried a fish to the \u201cbasement\u201d of the tree.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was either Gizmo, or a whole lot of weird coincidences,\u201d she wrote in the post.<\/p>\n

The social media post currently has 11,000 likes and hundreds of comments from thrilled fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe definitely has Gizmo\u2019s personality, and I think I saw the upturn at the edges of her mouth, which she got from Shadow,\u201d one commenter wrote. \u201cThis video has brought a lot of heartwarming sentiments back. I worried about her, hoped she was okay, and seeing this juvenile back at the nest, looking at the camera in the way Gizmo used to do, makes me so happy. I actually have tears in my eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

When eaglets take flight from their nest for the first time, they often return for the next few days or weeks as they learn the ropes, Steers said in an interview. <\/p>\n

\u201cOnce they get past that period and then aren\u2019t coming to the nest at all, then it\u2019s rare for them to come back,\u201d she explained. <\/p>\n

The visit represents a peaceful epilogue to an eventful nesting season marked by both sorrow and joy.<\/p>\n

In the waning days of January, Jackie laid a rare third egg<\/a> in her snow-covered nest.<\/p>\n

In 2024, she laid three eggs for the first time<\/a>. None of the trio hatched despite Jackie guarding that clutch for 62 hours through an unrelenting snowstorm.<\/p>\n

Their devoted fans wondered whether this year would be kinder to the couple. <\/p>\n

All of the chicks broke out of their shells, with Gizmo emerging last on March 8<\/a>. Jackie and Shadow faithfully tended to the \u201cfluff balls of adorability,\u201d per the nonprofit\u2019s description.<\/p>\n

But not long after, a fierce storm rolled through the area. It claimed the life of one of the eaglets<\/a>, named Misty.<\/p>\n

The remaining siblings \u2014 sisters Gizmo and Sunny \u2014 survived.<\/p>\n

On June 2, Sunny made her first flight. Five days later, Gizmo followed suit.<\/p>\n

The first year of life<\/a> can be perilous for an eagle. Because of its inexperience, a juvenile bald eagle has less than a 50% chance of surviving, according to the American Eagle Foundation.<\/p>\n

When Jackie and Shadow start nesting again, Gizmo and other kids would be treated as \u201cintruders,\u201d Steers said. <\/p>\n

Eagles are mostly monogamous and the pair has nested together for the last seven years. <\/p>\n

Nesting season typically starts in October, when eagles start bringing sticks to the nest as part of a bonding ritual. <\/p>\n

Jackie and Shadow \u201chad a big year this year, so they might take extra time off,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When bald eagle power couple Jackie and Shadow\u2019s two baby girls flew their Big Bear nest earlier this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[31264,83673,275,11751,3728,22208,83670,83671,42504,11224,83674,79,83672,83676,201,2394,83675],"class_list":["post-132637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-baby","tag-big-bear-nest","tag-day","tag-eagle","tag-facebook-post","tag-flight","tag-gizmo","tag-jackie","tag-nest","tag-nonprofit","tag-sandy-steers","tag-science","tag-shadow","tag-sunny","tag-wildlife","tag-year","tag-young-bald-eagle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}