The two chicks growing in Big Bear’s famous bald eagle nest have been named.
The offspring of famous parents Jackie and Shadow will be called Sandy and Luna, according to Friends of Big Bear Valley, the nonprofit that runs a popular YouTube livestream of the nest and is working to preserve acres of land in the area.
The organization announced the results of this year’s chick naming contest Friday after inviting the eagles’ fanbase to submit suggestions with a donation last month.
Keeping with tradition, the final votes were left up to Big Bear Valley third-grade students. A list of names was selected randomly from the nearly 64,000 public fundraiser submissions and delivered on ballots to the students, who are studying bald eagles in school, earlier this week.
Sandy was the most popular name entered into the contest with more than 3,700 submissions, according to Friends of Big Bear Valley.
The name is an homage to Sandy Steers, an environmental advocate who helped launch the eagle livestream and the nonprofit’s late executive director. She died in February, a few weeks before the pair of eggs were laid.
“Please know that although Sandy would not have wanted us to outright name one of the eaglets Sandy, she would have been honored that you and the students went through the process and named one of the 2026 eaglets after her,” the organization wrote on Facebook Friday to its more than 1.2 million followers.
Chick naming traditions
Sandy and Luna have been known as Chick 1 and Chick 2, respectively, since they hatched in early April.
Once the eaglets arrived, Friends of Big Bear Valley was swarmed with hundreds of requests to name one of the chicks “Sandy.”
But it’s a right of passage for the Big Bear third graders to name the chicks, and the tradition was “one of Sandy’s greatest joys,” according to Jenny Voisard, Friends of Big Bear Valley’s media manager.
Jackie and Shadow, the adult birds whose parenting saga each nesting season has captured human attention around the world, have had previous chicks named Stormy, BBB (for Big Bear Baby), Simba, Spirit and Cookie through a similar process.
“Last year, because Jackie and Shadow did not have chicks the previous two seasons, she opened it up to the other grades that didn’t get to participate when they were in the third grade,” Voisard said in a statement. “That was Sandy. Education was extremely important to her.”
Last season’s eaglets were dubbed Sunny and Gizmo by the Big Bear elementary students, who voted on 30 finalists pulled from about 54,000 name choices crowdsourced in a week-long fundraiser.
What’s next for Sandy and Luna
The nonprofit asked people to submit gender neutral names because the sex of each eaglet is not yet known.
Sandy and Luna are nearly 4 weeks old as of Friday, but once the eaglets reach around 9 to 10 weeks old, there should be signs that can help Friends of Big Bear Valley make an educated guess.
One of Jackie and Shadow's chicks peaks out from behind its parent on April 5.
Big Bear's famous bald eaglets on April 7.
The chicks in the nest overlooking Big Bear Lake on April 12.
Sandy and Luna, formally known as Chick 1 and Chick 2, stretching in the nest on April 30.
Some of the signs the nonprofit looks out for include the chick’s size, ankle thickness and vocal pitch.
Generally speaking, female bald eagles are larger than males. Female bald eagles also tend to have larger vocal organs — the syrinx — which leads to deeper, lower-pitched vocalizations, according to Friends of Big Bear Valley.
The only definitive way to know the eaglets’ sex is through a blood test, which nonprofit officials have said is unlikely. There is no human intervention in the nest during nesting season, according to Voisard.
When the eaglets are around 10 to 14 weeks old, they could fledge, or take their first flight away from the nest overlooking Big Bear Lake.
But as the nonprofit often reminds fans, nature is in charge of the timeline — a previous eaglet named Simba took 16 weeks to fledge.
Fledglings from Southern California have been spotted as far north as British Columbia, as far east as Yellowstone and as far south as Baja California, according to Friends of Big Bear Valley.
Big picture progress
Friends of Big Bear Valley is continuing to lead a $10 million fundraiser to buy more than 62-acres near the nest to preserve it from a planned housing project called Moon Camp.
Instead, the organization and the San Bernardino Mountains Land Trust want the land to be placed under a permanent conservatorship.
Officials say “Save Moon Camp” is the most ambitious fundraising effort in the history of Friends of Big Bear Valley. It’s raised more than $2.3 million as of Friday.
