Jackie and Shadow have continued visiting the nest almost daily, with Jackie being the most-frequent and longest-staying visitor.
On Saturday evening, Shadow arrived first for some small stick taming—moving this one over here and that one over there, to get them all calmed and into their proper location. When Jackie arrived with another small stick, they both continued making changes to the smaller house decorations.
After a bit of bumping around each other in the nest bowl, Shadow decided it called for a bit of beaky pecky to give approval of Jackie’s rearranging assistance—as they do each bit of nest arranging, every bumping movement into each other, every direct look at each other and every beaky touch, it all tightens the ongoing bond between them.
As Shadow circled around the nest edges, inspecting every change, Jackie started moving some medium sized furniture into new places. So, of course, Shadow stepped back in to give a little more assistance before heading to the back porch.
Even though Shadow was finished for the evening, apparently the sticks weren’t—they got his toes 'stuck in sticks' as he tried to leave and threw off his balance. He had to reorganize his position before he could head out to the roost tree. Jackie was very careful in preparing to leave to make sure no sticks tried to hold onto her.
Last night both Jackie and Shadow were back for another nest visit. Shadow arrived first, and as he landed, a couple of pesky sticks jumped right into his landing path so he had to settle with them before he could do anything else. Within a few minutes, dusk turned on the Infrared light making the picture turn from full color to black & white—please know that neither the eagles nor humans can see the infrared light—it just allows the camera to pick up the images so we can watch after dark.
Jackie soon arrived to join Shadow, and with her she brought...a Giant pine cone! Shadow immediately took the pine cone and looked around for a place to put it. But, it seems he couldn’t find one. He quickly put the pine cone down and decided to ignore it and go back to work on the easy stuff, the big sticks. He knows what to do with them and they allow him to order them around…at least most of the time.
Once again, when he decided he was finished some of the sticks tried to hold him back. But he pulled free as Jackie took over the stick placement behind him. After Shadow left out the back door, it was obvious that Jackie was also ignoring that big elephant in the nest—the pine cone. Even as she almost stepped on it, she kept her focus elsewhere. Leaving it laying there, Jackie soon left out the back to join Shadow in the roost tree.
We’ll look forward to seeing what happens on their next visit…and what they decide to do with the new big pine cone laying in the middle of everything.
Sandy

PS For anyone interested in some of our other amazing species in Big Bear Valley, we just released an updated version of Tim Krantz’s Guide to Rare and Unusual Wildflowers of Big Bear Valley, called “A Wildflower Treasure Hunt.” The book has been out of print for several years and we are grateful to be able to work with Dr. Krantz to update and re-release this awesome guide. Some of these species exist only in our valley and nowhere else in the world! Find it on our website at: www.friendsofbigbearvalley.org/shop/a-wildflower-t…

Friends of Big Bear Valley (FOBBV) friendsofbigbearvalley.org/
Official Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/FOBBV/
Official Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/fobbv