Experts removed a baby eagle from its nest at the National Arboretum this week — and devoted eagle-cam viewers and social media followers freaked out.
On Monday a certified tree-climbing expert scaled an 80-foot poplar tree at the expansive Northeast D.C. property and carefully took the eaglet — known as DC9 — out of the nest, brought it down to be measured and checked, and then put it back.
This all prompted many to worry after its parents did not immediately rush to feed it. Some feared, now that it had been touched by humans, that the eaglet would be abandoned.
Not so, eagle experts said.
The eaglet’s first exam unfolded with oversight from officials at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the D.C. Department of Energy and Environment. And as is customary in the modern age of technology, live cameras gave the public a front-row seat, too, as the eaglet’s parents — known as Mr. President and Lotus, short for Lady of the United States — perched on nearby branches and hovered to watch.
The eagle cams and social media accounts documented it all for the eaglet’s baby book.
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As Jim Campbell-Spickler, a trained and certified climber, approached the tree using ropes and safety harnesses, the eaglet spread its wings — an instinctive defensive move, experts said.
Once on the edge of the large nest, Campbell-Spickler — who is a wildlife biologist and also serves as the director of the Sequoia Park Zoo in California — briefly talked to the eaglet to try to calm it down. He then carefully picked it up, placed it in a small bag and climbed down with it in tow.
On the ground, the eaglet underwent a checkup that involved measuring it, drawing blood, taking a feather sample and putting an aluminum identification band from the U.S. Geological Survey on its leg to help identify it later.
But DC9′s removal from the nest ruffled the feathers of some eagle-camera watchers and social media followers who worried about the bird’s safety and return to the nest. One cam watcher called the climber going into the nest an “intrusion.”
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Another eagle watcher, Steven Gottschalk, wrote on the Facebook page of the American Eagle Foundation’s nest cam that he “freaked when I clicked on the live cam and saw an empty nest!!!”
Dana Carrigan of Fredericksburg, Va., said she avidly watches the eagle cameras and worried when she saw DC9 being taken out of the nest.
“We’re like mothers and fathers to these birds,” Carrigan said. “We feel what they feel. It’s difficult to watch sometimes. ... Here was the huge man coming up into the nest. It’s traumatizing when you see this poor, little defenseless eaglet.”
Dan Rauch, the city’s wildlife biologist, assured concerned viewers that DC9 was fine.
“This is part of how we learn about eagles,” Rauch said. “It’s done as quickly as possible — and safely — so as not to stress the bird too much.”
DC9 hatched in late March and was so named because it was the ninth bald eagle to hatch at the arboretum’s nest. Its sibling, DC8, died days before, shortly after it hatched. It was the first time in three seasons that a pair of bald eagles has successfully had offspring at the arboretum’s nest.
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The nest has a storied history.
In 2014, Mr. President and an eagle named the First Lady met, bonded and began building a nest at the arboretum together. Eagle experts celebrated, because it was the first time since 1947 that there had been a nest at the site.
The couple had seven eaglets hatch at the nest, the last in 2018 before it died of West Nile virus. They had repeated troubles producing offspring thereafter, and the First Lady left the nest for good in 2021, allowing Lotus to swoop in.
DC9 is the first successful offspring for Lotus and Mr. P.
Eaglets are sometimes banded when they are between 4 and 6 weeks old, before they develop wing feathers, or fledge, at the age of 10 to 13 weeks.
Experts believe DC9 is a male, based on its talon and foot-pad size — a specialized measurement used to determine sex — and the depth of its beak, Rauch said. Male eagles are usually smaller than females. The blood sample will confirm its sex, and experts said they will also test the eaglet’s blood and a feather sample to check for possible pollutants.
“We know this eagle’s nest feeds out of the Anacostia River and is their food source,” Rauch said. “The Anacostia has traditionally been a very polluted source, but they’ve done leaps and bounds in cleaning up the water.”
Testing DC9′s blood could also give experts clues as to why eagles have struggled to lay and successfully hatch eggs at the site, Rauch said.
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During its exam, DC9 also got the silver-colored identification band on it legs so that if someone takes a photo of it in the wild or years from now, Rauch said, “we can look up the identification number and know where it came from.”
Shortly after the eaglet was put back in its nest, Rauch said, its parents came back and fed it. By Tuesday afternoon, “everything was back to normal,” he said, and DC9 was doing fine.
“Eagles put a lot of time and energy in building the nest and bringing up this chick,” Rauch said. “They’re not going to just abandon this chick.”
To many eagle-cam watchers, that’s been a relief.
“So happy the family is back together!” one fan wrote on the eagle foundation’s Facebook page Wednesday. It was a sentiment widely echoed.
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