Eagles Liberty & Patriot return early to nest site..Turtle Bay

[Donna]

 

 Redding's most famous fowl have returned to their downtown nest during some seriously foul weather.

As fall's first big rainstorm approached Monday evening, Terri Lhuillier said her husband spotted Patriot and Liberty - a pair of adult bald eagles - checking out the nest at Turtle Bay where they raised a rare trio of eaglets this spring.

"We really didn't expect to see them this early," she said.

Despite the apparent return, an improved California Department of Transportation webcam affixed to a cottonwood limb near the nest won't likely be broadcasting images until next month, said Denise Yergenson, Caltrans spokeswoman.

That's when the eagles take roost in earnest. For now, Yergenson said the birds will be sporadically inspecting the nest before beginning work to rebuild it.

Patriot and Liberty became locally famous in 2007 when they resisted an effort by Caltrans to move them from their nest because of coming bridge construction. To do so, workers on contract with Caltrans wired a plastic cone to the nest. After about a month of protests by the public - including Lhuillier, a Redding science teacher who led a group of eagle fans to talks with the agency - and persistence by the bald eagles themselves, the agency removed the cone in December 2007. Bridge construction is expected to last until early 2011.

The eagles, who earned their names in a Redding.com poll, went on to have two eaglets in spring 2008 despite the nearby clatter of jackhammers and cranes.

Laws protecting bald eagles require the agency to monitor the impact of the construction on the eagles, so before the eagles returned in late fall 2008, Caltrans installed a digital video camera close to the nest.

This spring, the eagles outdid themselves, raising three eaglets from eggshell to airborne - a rarity in the eagle world.

Much of the spectacular sight was caught on the webcam, but continued technical difficulties brought the broadcast down before the eaglets took their first flights in June.

This year, the agency installed a new camera and a new hardwired line to connect its signal to its server, Yergenson said. Last year, trees interfered with the wireless link between the camera and the server, causing the cutoff.

"The wireless system just wasn't consistent enough," Yergenson said.

The old camera is still in place, she said, also now connected to a hardwired line and serving as a backup to the new camera.

Like Lhuillier, Yergenson said she and other Caltrans officials were surprised to see the eagles back already - and during such a storm.

"We really didn't expect them until the end of the month," Yergenson said. "What a day to pick to return to the nest.     

[valhalla]

 

[Donna]

 
Mystery looms over the downtown nest of Redding's unofficial mascot bald eagles.

Earlier this month, Patriot and Liberty appeared to have made an early return to their Turtle Bay nest adjacent to ongoing construction on Highway 44's Sacramento River bridge.

Two adult bald eagles have been spotted carrying sticks and mending the nest since, but photos of them have revealed dark brown patches of feathers on one eagle's signature white hood - raising questions of whether there is a new bird, or even a new pair preparing to move into the massive aerie.

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"That's not the two that have nested there in the past," said Denise Yergenson, spokeswoman for the California Department of Transportation.

At first, Terri Lhuillier, a Redding science teacher and avid eagle aficionado, said she thought the feathers had been darkened by dirt, but two rainstorms have passed and the markings haven't washed away. A check of bird books showed that bald eagles grow into their trademark white hoods over several years, going from all-brown fledglings to the familiar brown and white combination.

The markings seen on the eagle at Turtle Bay are likely of a four-year old, Lhuillier said. Patriot and Liberty first began building the nest in a cottonwood in 2004 and have raised eaglets there since 2006.

So who is the eagle? And is the other one of the original pair?

"It is kind of a mystery," Lhuillier said.

The pair of adult bald eagles - named by Redding.com readers in an online poll - became locally famous when they resisted an effort by state highway officials to move them to a new nest by wiring a plastic cone atop the Turtle Bay nest in winter 2007. Having reclaimed the nest, the pair of bald eagles successfully raised a pair of eaglets there that spring and a rare trio this year.

A webcam installed by the California Department of Transportation broadcast many of the happenings in the nest to the Internet last year and this spring, before faltering shortly before the eaglets took their first flights in June.

The pair now at the nest likely aren't grown eaglets returning home, said Craig Martz, staff environmental scientist with the state Department of Fish and Game, although another juvenile eagle has recently been spotted nearby.

"Usually if one of the juveniles comes back, the adults will drive them away," he said.

Patriot and Liberty aren't the first eagles to draw fans for their reluctance to leave their nest despite construction clatter.

Over the past decade the saga of George and Martha, eagles who nest next to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge on the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., has often made headlines in The Washington Post and other news outlets around the country. In spring 2006, the tale took a tabloidesque turn when a nest-wrecking younger female eagle attacked Martha, leaving her bloody and grounded. The Post equated the situation to Angelina Jolie's breakup of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston's marriage. Treated by wildlife rehabilitators, Martha later returned to the nest.

It's unclear whether a similar drama is set to unfold at the Turtle Bay nest.

Lhuillier said the young eagle appears to be a female because she's larger than the other adult. In general, female eagles are bigger than their male mates, but the birds' sex organs are internal so a DNA test is necessary to determine gender.

"They seem like a pair," she said. "They've been calling to each other and sitting side to side."

She's even caught glimpses of them pecking affectionately at each other.

Having monitored bald eagle nests - including the one at Turtle Bay - from 1992 through 2007 while working for DFG, Bruce Deuel said bald eagles typically mate for life. But if their partner's life ends, they'll find a replacement.

"It's not like they will sit around heartbroken the rest of their life," he said. "They will go out and get a new mate right away."

So the appearance of the young eagle could mean that one of the original pair might have died since the last nesting season ended in June, said Deuel, who retired in 2007.

There's also the possibility that the pair is an entirely new one. If that's the case, Patriot and Liberty could have a fight on their talons when they return to their old nest.

Eagles live upward to 20 years in the wild and are fiercely territorial, Deuel said.

Whoever the pair at Turtle Bay is, it appears they plan to stay.

"If they are working on the nest now," Deuel said, "this is a pair that wants to nest there."

[Donna]

An eagle lands on a branch Friday by a nest near the Highway 44 bridge in Redding.

Patriot and Liberty are back atop their nest in downtown Redding.

And this time, it is not a false alarm, said Terri Lhuillier, a Redding science teacher who regularly spends her evenings watching bald eagle activity around the nest from the bike path between the Monolith and Highway 44 at Turtle Bay.

Earlier this month, there were questions whether a younger female eagle had replaced Liberty, she said, but over the last week and a half, the popular Redding eagle mom seems to have returned.
Terri Lhuillier and her son, Jimmy, 12, both of Redding, look at the eagles at their nest near the Highway 44 bridge from the trail behind Turtle Bay on Friday.

Terri Lhuillier and her son, Jimmy, 12, both of Redding, look at the eagles at their nest near the Highway 44 bridge from the trail behind Turtle Bay on Friday.

"It looks like her to me," Lhuillier said.

The locally famous pair of bald eagles appeared to make their annual return last month, but then Lhuillier and others keeping a close eye on the nest noticed that one of them had the feathers of a young eagle. Although the bird had a white hood, there was a mix of brown feathers on its face - an indicator that the bird was three or four years old.

Questions abounded about whether Patriot, the male eagle, had a new partner or if it was a new pair all together.

"It is really hard to tell bald eagles apart," Lhuillier said.

The birds had earned their names through a Redding.com poll after they won their nest back from a California Department of Transportation effort to move them away from Highway 44 bridge construction in 2007.

Having first built the nest in 2004, the pair raised eaglets there the past three years - including a rare eaglet trio in March.

Watching the eagles through a spotting scope, Lhuillier said the birds appear to be Patriot and Liberty.

"We have not seen that immature in over a week," she said.

Living along the Sacramento River just south of the nest and Highway 44, Richard Downs said he has seen the pair of eagles buzz by his home two or three times and they look to be Patriot and Liberty.

He even got a close look at the male - the smaller bird of the pair - earlier this week when it perched in a tree near his yard.

"That eagle that was in our tree looked like the male eagle from before," Downs said.

Patriot and Liberty or not, the eagles had better get their feathers primed for a premier.

Caltrans is set to start broadcasting images from a camera affixed above the nest at Turtle Bay onto the Internet on Dec. 2, said Denise Yergenson, Caltrans spokeswoman in Redding. A premier event, featuring talks by eagle experts and a highlight reel from the raising of last year's eaglets, is set for noon that day at Turtle Bay Exploration Park.

The agency is printing up posters that mimic movie posters. Patriot and Liberty are the headliners.

"What were we going to put, 'The birds?' " Yergenson said. "We are assuming it is Patriot and Liberty."