How Big Bear's Eagle Couple Became An Internet Obsession

Tens of thousands of people around the world have watched Big Bear’s famous eagle Jackie pair up with mates, huddle through torrential snow storms and joyfully celebrate when her eaglets took flight.

Twelve-year-old bald eagle Jackie and her 10-year-old mate Shadow have again captivated audiences, as thousands watch a live webcam to see if the raptor’s three eggs laid in January will hatch.

The bald eagles live in the San Bernardino Mountains overlooking Big Bear Lake.

“I’m shocked, but at the same time I’ve been totally captivated since the beginning,” said Sandy Steers, executive director of Friends of Big Bear Valley, a preservation group that operates the solar-powered webcams and meticulously documents the raptors' lives.

One solar-powered camera is perched next to the nest about 140 feet high, near the very top of a Jeffrey pine tree, giving us a nest sideseat to the duo’s home. The other is pointed up at the tree from a lower angle. Both are streaming live, every minute of the day as dedicated watchers from around the world leave notes for one another, detailing their observations.

“There’s something about watching their day to day life that is totally addictive and intriguing,” Steers said.

How bald eagles came to call Big Bear home

Jackie's parents, Ricky and Lucy, became the first known adult eagles to stay in Big Bear Valley, which until then had only been a winter destination for the species.

Jackie became the first eaglet hatched in Big Bear Valley in 2012, according to Steers who lives near the nest where Jackie was born and watched her grow up.

“We could see the nest from almost a mile away, but you couldn’t see into the nest. One year there were chicks before a storm, and after a storm, nobody. We just wanted to see what was going on inside that nest,” Steers said.

After getting a special use permit from the U.S. Forest Service, it took two years to raise the $10,000 needed to buy the equipment and pay experts to install the camera in the 12-story-tall tree.

After installing the camera in 2015, it was later discovered Ricky and Lucy had found a more sheltered tree and built a new nest about 1/4 mile away. The couple successfully raised two chicks, named Midnight and Sky, while the nest with the camera sat empty.

The arrival of Jackie

In 2016, Ricky and Lucy left the area. The next year, a sub-adult female took over the old nest with the camera. There’s no way to know for sure that the raptor is Jackie, but the bird is the right age and the name stuck.

Since then, Jackie has laid 14 eggs. Some years the eggs were infertile or were eaten by ravens. Five of Jackie’s chicks have hatched and three survived to fledging.

“That’s not unusual for eagles,” Steers said. “It’s always very hard and heartbreaking when things don’t work out the way that we would like them to, but it’s nature.”

Steers said if these eggs are infertile the pair could still lay another clutch this season.

The video of the pair’s last chick Spirit taking her first flight from the nest in 2022 has been viewed 182,000 times, with more than 2,200 comments on Facebook.

“It’s been good in that it supports the economy up here with people wanting to know what Big Bear is and know more about it. The people that come that are fans of the eagles are very polite and good with nature, they’re not coming to cause any harm, so it’s been good.”

Still, the exact location of the nest is kept secret.

Why we can’t turn away from wildlife cameras

Public reaction can also be intensely emotional. People have pleaded with Steers and others to build a cover over the nest to protect it from rain and snow, after the raptor pair were catapulted to stardom in 2023 as people around the world watched the birds diligently incubate their eggs through severe snowstorms.

“They are wild animals, we don’t intrude. The eagles know how to have a nest without a canopy on it,” Steers said, laughing.

The eagles are named by Big Bear Elementary School third graders, a practice started by the Forest Service.

Steers said maintaining and repairing the cameras cost between $10,000 and $22,000 a year, which is usually covered by donations. Sometimes the nonprofit asks the viewing public for specialty funds.

The cameras, livestream, newsletters and live chats on Facebook and YouTube are also supported by a devoted group of 10 volunteers around the world who take shifts monitoring and documenting the nest 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

The zealous documentation of the raptors has led to a greater understanding of bald eagle behavior, Steers said.

“Sometimes we discover that it’s only Jackie and Shadow that do particular behaviors. We haven’t seen other males on other nests argue to stay sitting on the eggs like Shadow does. At the same time we have seen that all the eagle pairs trade off, and the males take their turn,” Steers said.

The eagles' unique personalities are part of their popularity.

“It’s not just this kind of bird doing instinctive behaviors. They have their own mindset, it’s fascinating to watch," Steers said.

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