3-10-2023 A Noisy Day, Then Quiet Bonding…
The past few days, even though Jackie and Shadow have not spent much time at the nest, they have been hanging out in the nest area, using all of their favorite perch trees.
Thursday afternoon, when Shadow brought lunch to the nest, Jackie was hot on his tail. They were apparently working from different understandings of the situation. Jackie, as usual, loudly demanded that all food coming to the nest is hers. After all, she lays the eggs. Shadow, however, apparently decided that since there are no eggs, he would keep the lunch for himself. Lots of noisy arguing, a little tug-of-war…and then Jackie took the coot. She is over 30% bigger than Shadow and weighs more, so if she is serious enough about the food, she can get it.
After chowing down, Jackie was hanging out on her favorite perch tree, when a sub-adult landed on the same tree. Jackie chortled at it and slapped her wings, announcing that she was not pleased to have it there. The other eagle moved farther away from Jackie but stayed on that same tree for almost 10 minutes.
Shadow was apparently perched somewhere nearby, keeping an eye on the situation. When the sub-adult flew, Shadow zipped after it toward the nest. And Jackie took off to help.
Shadow chased that intruder right past the nest before flying in to stand guard. He shouted that intruder away, and even moved a small stick in the nest, laying full claim.
When the visitor landed in nearby perch tree, Shadow and Jackie continued to shout at it from both directions, telling it to vacate their territory. It watched back and forth, keeping an eye on each of them.
Shadow stayed in the nest, guarding until long after that visiting sub-adult decided that leaving the area might be a good idea.
After all their daily activities, Jackie and Shadow often rendezvous at their favorite look-out snag for some quiet togetherness before heading off to roost. Whatever arguments might have taken place earlier get set aside before bedtime.
Little note--The sound heard in the background on the nest camera is the rushing water of a nearby seasonal stream being filled with all the recent rain and melting snow.
– There has been lots of speculation that this visiting sub-adult was Spirit, Jackie and Shadow’s chick from last year. The markings on the visitor show it to be at least 2 and maybe 3 years old, so as much as we would all like it to be, it was definitely not Spirit.
REMINDER: Jackie and Shadow and their nest will be featured on the TV show NCIS on CBS on Monday night, March 13, at 9 pm. For anyone who might not be able to watch at that time, CBS puts each of their episodes up on their website after they have aired--https://www.cbs.com/shows/ncis/ --and they are free to view for 2 or 3 weeks. Enjoy!
Sandy
FriendsofBigBearValley.org https://friendsofbigbearvalley.org/
