LEARNING TO FLY

LAKEWOOD RANCH — For the last three months, Lakewood Ranch resident Bob Girard has had his eyes kept on the large nest at Our Lady of the Angels Catholic Community, where a pair of bald eagles having been raising two eaglets.

But just a few weeks ago, the nest collapsed, hurrying the eaglets along in their lessons on flying.

And now, they are readying to fly north for the hot summer months.

“The process of seeing the eaglets grow from chicks to fledglings has been fascinating to watch,” said Girard, an amateur photographer.

The eaglets hatched Feb. 1 and had since been developing under the careful watch of their parents. The four-foot-wide nest in which they were hatched and raised fell apart over a four-day period at the end of April.

 “After the nest collapsed, these eaglets just hopped over on a branch and stayed in the tree,” said Dale Nauman, head of the Manatee Audubon Society’s Eagle Watch Program. “The male would come in to feed them and the female would fly in and take the food (from him) and fly down to the lake to draw (the eaglets) in. That’s the first time we’ve seen that.”

But the female eagle’s strategy worked, Nauman said. Within two days, the eaglets had begun to spread their wings, although they were reluctant to fly.

“It was really cool to be able to get the adult eaglets bringing prey into their nest (on camera),” Girard said. “The young ones (had been) practicing their flight. ... Sometimes, it’s like a controlled crash from a higher tree to a lower tree.”

Nauman said the eaglets now will fly to the Chesapeake Bay area or farther north for the summer and return to their birthing place at Our Lady of the Angels’ campus in the fall. But when they arrive next year, the parent eagles will ward their offspring off, as they build a new nest for more young.

The eagle’s nest at Our Lady of the Angels has fallen down over the summer for the last three of four years, Nauman said, noting disintegration of nests is common. The eagle pair simply will rebuild it in about two weeks when they return in the fall to nest again.

Although the eagle’s nest fell apart on its own in this case, Nauman said bald eagle parents sometimes will destroy the nests themselves to encourage their offspring to fly, Nauman said.

Contact Pam Eubanks at [email protected].