The nest at Big Bear Valley is getting crowded, as Jackie and Shadow’s two bald eagle chicks continue to grow. Now that they’re about a month old, they’ve been given names. Meet Sunny and Gizmo.
The Friends of Big Bear Valley, the nonprofit that runs the 24/7 webcam that monitors the nest, reported about 54,000 suggestions were submitted through their online naming contest. From those, thirty were selected to be voted on by Big Bear Elementary School students in 3rd, 4th and 5th grade, according to FOBBV.
In the Facebook post announcing the names, FOBBV explained that the “Bigger Chick is now named Sunny and Smaller Chick is now named Gizmo.”
It will still be several weeks before biologists will be able to confirm the gender of the chicks. Bald eagles have nearly identical plumage regardless of gender, so the easiest way to determine gender is adult size. Female bald eagles are about 25% larger than their male counterparts, according to the Avian Report.
Jackie and Shadow first captured the eyes and hearts of the internet last year when Jackie sat on her clutch of three eggs. None of the eggs hatched last year, but viewers and fans were hopeful when Jackie once again laid three eggs in January.
By early March, all three eaglets had hatched, although one was confirmed to have died in a winter storm.
What’s next for Sunny and Gizmo?
Bald eagles will typically develop wings large enough for flight (fledge) around 12 weeks. This means Sunny and Gizmo will remain in the nest for anywhere from six to eight more weeks being cared for by Jackie and Shadow.
In the coming weeks, they will be growing their juvenile feathers to replace the thermal down they were born with.
At about eight weeks, the eaglets might start practicing flapping their wings and jumping around the nest and branches of the tree.
Even after fledging and leaving the nest, juvenile eagles stick around for a month or two to continue learning important skills from their parents. They will follow their parents to feeding grounds, mostly eating dead fish and carcasses as they learn how to hunt.
Juvenile and young eagles roam a great deal as they explore their new world, but according to Friends of Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, “they normally return to the same general area where they were born when they are old enough to raise their own families.”
