After bouts of bad luck, Standley Lake bald eagles have three juvenile offspring
Aug 29, 2024, 4:00 PM
After suffering at the hands of bad weather, home wrecking and nature-related mishaps for three years, the luck has turned for the well-known bald eagle couple that lives at Standley Lake in Westminster.
The loss of their hatchlings has plagued the pair for one reason or another since 2020, but the tide has turned and the three most recent offspring are now juveniles — making the batch the longest-living of any in the last three years.
2020 wasn’t a particularly good year for many, the eagles were no exception. The year started the streak of bad luck when a female eagle, identified as F420, chased the original mother off, making off with her mate, two unhatched eggs and one eaglet. None of the eggs made it after F420 left, and a magpie snatched the eaglet. The tragedy unfolded in front of many onlookers, as the nest was and still is livestreamed.
The newly-formed couple ran into another mishap the next year in 2021, when the cottonwood tree that held their nest split in half, collapsing the nest and thereby killing their lone, recently-hatched eaglet. The cause of the next two eaglets’ demise in 2022 was less clear, as their nest was built deeper in the wildlife refuge and was not in view of the camera. City and state officials searched the ground of the area in an effort to locate the bodies of the eaglets and were planning to perform a necropsy, but were unsuccessful, leaving the cause of death unknown.
Potentially the last of the unfortunate events, the fate of the 2023’s eaglet was similar to that of 2022’s, when the nest fell out of the tree due to a snowstorm.
The newest eaglets were born in late April and early May, marking the first time there have been three eaglets in the area since 2017. Granted everything goes as planned, the young eagles will likely leave the nest before October or November.
Many hope that 2024 is the start of a more successful era for the birds, many showing support by commenting on the Standley Lake Regional Park Facebook page‘s post regarding the family, made on August 22. The post stated that “These juveniles are now flying and learning how to hunt. They soon will leave the area to begin their own journeys.”
According to city spokesperson Andy Le, bald eagles have made the reservoir their home since 1993 and have consistently hatched and raised a varying number of eaglets from that point until 2020.
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