A baby eagle is back with its parents, carrying new ID and an adventure story after a few days away from its nest a little younger than is ideal.
Alerted by park users, Victoria parks staff found the eaglet on the ground on the final Friday of June near Lovers Lane in Beacon Hill.
“We went down to investigate, and lo and behold, we could see an eaglet that was basically almost at the fledgling stage but not quite there,” explained parks supervisor Michael Creighton. “This eaglet wasn’t able to fly, so it was in a pretty compromised location just because of the amount of people walking by and there’s lots of dogs in that area.”
So they sought advice from the BC SPCA through the Wild Animal Rehabilitation Centre (Wild ARC) in Metchosin.
Creighton was one of the two staffers who captured the baby in an “exhilarating few moments” as he popped a blanket over its head. “I wrapped my arms around it and grabbed its legs so its talons could not do its worst.”
Parks staff crated the critter and drove it out to Metchosin, where it spent the weekend getting a clean bill of health and a new anklet.
“We don’t know why the eagle ended up on the ground, but we knew he was rather young to be there, so we had to get him back up as close to the nest as possible,” senior wildlife rehabilitator Wallis Moore Reid said.
The newly formed team of Victoria Parks and Wild ARC assessed from photos how close they could get to returning the young raptor to its parents, keenly watching the work of the humans below.
“They were there (the parents) and the eagle was in good health, but simply too young to be on his own,” Reid said.
In what Reid called an “awesome collaboration”, Wild ARC and Parks staff worked together to determine where and how to get the baby back in a perch high enough for it to skedaddle back to the nest – with a little parental guidance.
“It was in excellent condition. It wasn’t injured so we wanted to reunite it and get it back into the tree.” Creighton said. “We shut down the pathway on Monday (June 30) and got our urban forestry team to bring over their boom truck.”
A city arborist got a rundown from a Wild ARC tech to keep both man and beast safe as he lifted it to the selected branch roughly 60 feet from the ground.
The path remained closed on Canada Day as crews sought some quiet time for the youngster to hop its way back up.
“We’re very hopeful it was a successful reunification,” Creighton said, noting it hasn’t specifically been identified since, but there are juvenile eagles among the trees in the southeast woods.
“He was monitored by city staff the following day and there were no signs he was back on the ground or parents weren’t caring for him, so it was successful,” Reid said.
While in Wild ARC care, the eaglet was also banded with a unique identifier to track his tale.
“We like to band as many of the birds as we can before they’re released to get that kind of information,” Reid said.
The Metchosin rehab sees a fair number of eagles needing attention each year, but few of the young ones.
This one needed another month or so of parental guidance.
Anyone who sees an animal that causes concern can call BC SPCA animal help line at 1-855-622-7722 for advice.
