Was the young bald eagle that dropped by Jackie and Shadow’s nest their baby?

Los Angeles Times ^ | Sept. 4, 2025 3 AM PT | Lila Seidman

[E. Pluribus Unum]

• A young bald eagle visited the nest of internet-famous raptors Jackie and Shadow.
• The youngster was likely Gizmo, the eagle couple’s daughter.
• Like Gizmo, this eagle had a dark tail, missing feathers on its left wing and an upturned mouth.

When bald eagle power couple Jackie and Shadow’s two baby girls flew their Big Bear nest earlier this summer, it was bittersweet.

Thousands of adoring fans had watched them hatch on a 24-hour webcam that monitors the family and now they were growing up — fast.

But one of the internet-famous youngsters, Gizmo, may have just dropped by her childhood home, an unusual occurrence for an eagle of nearly six months.

A young eagle with several similarities to Gizmo hunkered down last Wednesday night on the couple’s favorite roost tree and was still hanging around the following morning, according to Friends of Big Bear Valley, a nonprofit that operates the livestream.

The juvenile then flew off to Jackie and Shadow’s nest in a Jeffrey pine tree overlooking Big Bear Lake, where a camera offered a closer view of the raptor. As the youngster curiously mulled about, moving sticks around, some conspicuous features became clear.

Like Gizmo, this eagle had a dark tail with hardly any white feathers, said Sandy Steers, executive director of Friends of Big Bear Valley. The corners of its mouth, called the gape, stopped around the middle of its eyes and turned up, which someone described as a “Mona Lisa smile,” she said.

After offloading a “poop shot,” the eagle flew off — revealing a gap in the feathers on the trailing edge of its left wing, Steers wrote in a Facebook post about the incident. The feature, which Gizmo had, was also visible when what was believed to be...

[dadfly]

i have to confess, my wife and i were/are fans. have been for several years.

[Paperpusher]

It is hard to get kids to leave the nest today, they keep coming back.

[dadfly]

:).

[4Liberty]

Love the eagle fam, have been watching them all spring —

https://youtu.be/9nK6El-RdoE