Bald eagles Jackie and Shadow have tended to 1st egg for a month. When will it hatch?

Helena Wegner
·2 min read
11

Beloved bald eagles Jackie and Shadow have been protecting three eggs through heavy rain and snowstorms in their Southern California nest.

Now it’s almost time for the first egg to hatch, Friends of Big Bear Valley executive director Sandy Steers said in a Feb. 26 Facebook post.

Steers said one egg is under “pip watch” starting Feb. 29. Jackie laid this egg on Jan. 25, and it takes about 35 days of incubation until a bald eagle egg begins to hatch.

Jackie and Shadows’ eggs have hatched after 38 to 39 days in the past, she wrote.

Bald eagle Jackie laid her first egg shortly before 5 p.m. Jan. 25 at a nest near Big Bear Lake in California. It’s the first egg of the nesting season.
Bald eagle Jackie laid her first egg shortly before 5 p.m. Jan. 25 at a nest near Big Bear Lake in California. It’s the first egg of the nesting season.

A pip is created when a baby eagle uses a tooth on its beak to crack a hole on the membrane of the egg. Then the eaglet can take its first breath and can be heard peeping, the group said.

From there, the eaglet will slowly start to use its beak to scratch the inside of the shell until it pecks a hole through the external part of the shell. Then it will crack completely, according to Journey North, a nonprofit science program affiliated with the University of Wisconsin -Madison Arboretum.

But this process may take a day or two, the group said.

When will the other eggs start to hatch?

Jackie laid her second egg on Jan. 28. The hatching process may begin on March 3 for that egg and March 6 for the third egg. All eggs were laid three days a part.

If the eggs don’t hatch, the two will continue to incubate it, “then start spending longer periods off the eggs and eventually give up,” according to Journey North.

This happened to Jackie and Shadow last year when they abandoned their nest with two unhatched eggs, McClatchy News reported.

Eagles lost two eggs in 2023

Jackie laid her first egg of 2023 on Jan. 11, then her second one three days later in the middle of a storm.

The two protected the eggs from predators, cold weather and snow. But the eggs never hatched and eventually became a snack for a hungry raven.

The bald eagles have been successful in the past, though. In 2022, one of their two eggs hatched and was named Spirit, according to the nonprofit.

The baby eagle was believed to be a female by the nonprofit and fledged that year.

Big Bear Lake is about 95 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

Bald eagles Jackie and Shadow are seen in the nest together hours before Jackie lays her first egg Jan. 25.
Bald eagles Jackie and Shadow are seen in the nest together hours before Jackie lays her first egg Jan. 25.

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