Big Bear eaglets Sunny and Gizmo get ready to test their wings

Los Angeles Times

13-05-2025

Fans of Big Bear's bald eagle family — stars of their own webcam reality show — watched over the winter as parents Jackie and Shadow finally welcomed offspring to the nest after several previous attempts led to heartbreak. Now, in just 2½ months, their eaglets have sprouted up.
Time flies — and, any day now, so will Sunny and Gizmo.
The birds are expected to fledge, or fly for the first time, between 10 and 14 weeks of age. Sunny turned 10 weeks old on Tuesday, and Gizmo hits that mark on Saturday.
The pair are now around 3 feet tall, about the same size as dad Shadow, says Sandy Steers. The biologist is executive director of Friends of Big Bear Valley, the nonprofit that operates the 24-hour nest cam monitoring the feathered family in a towering Jeffrey pine that overlooks Big Bear Lake. Thousands — sometimes tens of thousands — tune in to the cam, which has been in place since 2015.
She says the eaglets' wingspan now stretches to more than 5 feet. The nest the foursome shares is big at 6 feet across, but it's getting crowded, and the eaglets are rambunctious.
They have been 'wing-ercizing' for weeks now, according to Steers.
Stretching and flapping their wings in the nest builds up muscle and hones balance, she said. At first, the hatchlings were 'flapping their little wings and tipping over,' Steers noted, but now they hop and jump across the nest as they're flapping.
Fledging can't happen until the eaglet is fully grown physically, she says, and that occurs somewhere between 10 and 14 weeks. Anytime over the next month, Sunny and Gizmo will leap from the nest and fly away. It's possible they won't return, Steers said, 'but they usually do.'
The parenting doesn't stop at that point, however. Once their offspring fledges, 'Jackie and Shadow will follow them around the area, showing them how to get food …. and taking good care of them because they don't know how to take care of themselves yet.'
That will go on for two or three months as the eaglets learn how to feed themselves. Then, Sunny and Gizmo will likely take off for parts unknown, 'traveling around meeting other juveniles,' Steers said.
Ah, kids. They grow up fast.
It seems like just a few months ago (and it was) that eagle-eyed devotees were following the Jackie and Shadow saga with both excitement and trepidation as the couple watched over a trio of eggs. It was the second year in a row they'd had a rare three-egg clutch. But the previous winter — one that saw Jackie at one point on her nest for hours, covered in snow, trying to keep her eggs warm — all three failed to hatch.
This year, there were triplets. The 'fluff balls of adorability,' as they were described on Facebook, had viewers riveted. But after a snowstorm brought more than 2 feet of snow to the area, one of the chicks died in the nest.
A juvenile bald eagle has less than a 50% chance of surviving its first year of life, according to the American Eagle Foundation.
Since the webcam was installed, only three chicks have fledged, which is normal, Steers told The Times in a previous interview: 'It's hard work being an eagle.'
The perilous first year aside, bald eagles generally live 15 to 30 years in the wild, experts say, although Steers noted one banded eagle who clocked in at 38 years.
With Sunny and Gizmo getting ready to strike out on their own, Jackie and Shadow will soon be empty-nesters. But in no time at all, Big Bear's only year-round eagle pair will be family planning again.
'They usually start rebuilding the nest in early to mid-October,' Steers said.
New eggs could be in the nest as soon as late December.