‘Fledge Watch’ begins for Big Bear’s famous bald eaglets

Sunny and Gizmo, Jackie and Shadow’s nearly-grown bald eaglets, could take their first flight away from the nest in Big Bear any day now.

“Fledge Watch” officially kicks off Tuesday, according to Friends of Big Bear Valley, the nonprofit that manages the popular YouTube livestream.

Young eagles fledge when they’re able to flap their wings and have feathers capable of flight, usually when they’re around 10 to 14 weeks old. Males tend to take their first soar a little sooner.

Sandy Steers, the nonprofit’s executive director, told LAist it’s especially exciting since they haven't had two eaglets fledge at the same time before. She’s encouraging fans to be in awe of nature and enjoy the moment so many have been waiting for, especially after the death of Chick 1.

“After not doing anything, you know, just bouncing up and down in the nest and practicing and exercising their wings, they know what to do,” she said. “They just take off … and fly.”

What’s going on during “Fledge Watch”

“Fledge Watch” is similar to “Pip Watch,” when fans watched closely for the trio of chicks as they worked their way out of their eggshells and into the world.

Although many of the steady 30,000 livestream viewers are eager to see Sunny and Gizmo continue to grow into the next stages of life, the fledge window is wide. It could be anytime from now to mid-June, when they’re about 14 weeks old. However, a previous eaglet named Simba took 16 weeks to fledge.

Sunny and Gizmo are about 10 weeks old and almost all grown up.

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But Sunny and Gizmo have already reached a milestone by staying in the nest alone overnight for the first time last week. They’ve also been perching on the far edge of the nest, which the group calls the “back porch,” flapping their wings into the breeze over Big Bear Lake.

“When they feel confident enough, you know, we don't know whether they'll go together or separately, but each one will just decide it's ready,” Steers said. “They may come back to the nest, you know, now and then, but they just fly for the first time and it's beautiful.”

It might take them a while to get the wing strength to fly back up to the nest, which is at the top of a tall Jeffrey pine tree, but Steers expects them to stick around the lake. The eaglets will likely follow Jackie and Shadow around while they learn to hunt and fish.

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 the nonprofit.

What are the dangers ahead?

Sunny and Gizmo aren’t out of the woods yet.

Bald eagles are primarily scavengers for their first year, according to Peter Sharpe,  a wildlife biologist with the Institute for Wildlife Studies and Sharpe Wildlife Consulting. That can bring its own risks — about 70% of bald eagles survive that stage, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The biggest issues for the young eagles include getting hit by a car while they’re feeding on roadkill, flying into power lines, or lead poisoning from eating something that was shot.

Simba and another one of the nest's previous chicks, Stormy, were both found dead in different parts of California about a year after fledging. Stormy had fledged in April 2018 and Simba was last seen at the nest in August 2019.

They were identified based on the numbers they were banded with as chicks, according to the nonprofit’s records. It’s unclear what happened to them.

“ I don't like a lot of the things that can happen, but there's not really anything that I can do about it,” Steers said. “We won't know where they are or what they're doing, and we'll just have to keep our fingers crossed and just, you know, tell the universe to make them be O.K.”

How to tell the eaglets apart at this point

Sunny is 10 weeks old as of Tuesday, with Gizmo a few days behind.

Their bones are almost fully grown and they’re now nearly the same size as Mama Jackie and Papa Shadow. They’re estimated to be about 3 feet tall at this stage, which is right around Shadow’s height. Jackie is bigger, as most female eagles are.

The discrete differences in Sunny and Gizmo's appearance, as noted by the nonprofit.

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The eaglets have slight differences on their heads and tails that can help you tell which one is which.

Sunny, for example, has a longer tail as the older eaglet. You can also start to spot the first bits of white on Sunny’s tail feathers.

The corner of Gizmo’s mouth, known as a gape, is more orange than Sunny’s. Gizmo also has a thicker lower lip, which according to the nonprofit, gives the eaglet a whimsy “Mona Lisa smile.”