Bald eagle dad wouldn’t give up egg duty. See mom pull tactic to ‘tick him off’ in CA
A bald eagle dad was cozy incubating three eggs in his Southern California nest until his partner pulled a clever trick on him.
Jackie, the bald eagle mom, was caught on camera sneaking onto the eggs Feb. 22, Friends of Big Bear Valley’s Executive Director Sandy Steers said in a Facebook post.
The mom initially flew into the nest overlooking Big Bear Lake carrying a big stick in her talons as Shadow was eagerly tending to the eggs, the video shows.
She plopped the stick right on Shadow’s back, and he let out a loud chortle.
“Jackie was so shocked that such a slip-up could have happened that she couldn’t do anything but stare at the stick and circle around Shadow as he tried to pull it off of his own back,” Steers wrote.
Shadow made many attempts to pull off the stick from his back but was unsuccessful, the video shows.
“Jackie probably did that on purpose and knew it would tick him off and she’d get her chance back on the eggs,” one person commented on Facebook.
And that’s exactly what Jackie did next as she snuck past Shadow to take a turn tending to the eggs.
“He already knew the game was over and left peacefully,” Steers wrote.
Pip watch has been set for March 1. A pip happens when an eaglet makes a small hole or crack in the egg.
Jackie and Shadow can be watched on the nonprofit’s live eagle camera.
Big Bear Lake is about a 95-mile drive northeast from Los Angeles.
This story was originally published February 25, 2025 at 4:54 PM with the headline "Bald eagle dad wouldn’t give up egg duty. See mom pull tactic to ‘tick him off’ in CA."
