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."