Jackie, the matriarch of a much-celebrated eagle nest above Big Bear Lake, has delivered her third egg in a week — her first three-egg clutch, according to a nonprofit that live streams the goings-on in the nest.
Friends of Big Bear Valley shared the happy news late Wednesday, Jan. 31.At 5:49 p.m., Jackie started to look a little restless, FOBBV wrote. Her feathers puffed out, tail raised a few times, and a teakettle sound escaped her nostrils as she pushed.
“Within a few moments … the trembling stopped, the teakettle went silent and Jackie’s feathers began laying down,” FOBBV wrote. “It took her a moment to calm and recover. Then she turned enough to show the nest bowl … and THERE WERE 3! Three beautiful, perfect eggs underneath her.”
Jackie gently rolled the eggs, FOBBV wrote, softened the nest bowl around them and then settled in over the clutch.
Jackie and her partner, Shadow, Big Bear’s famous nesting eagles, welcomed their first egg on Thursday, Jan. 25. Three days later, a second egg appeared.
The clutch will be cared for by Jackie and Shadow through the late winter, with pip watch beginning in early March. Last year, neither of the eggs laid by Jackie hatched. Her most recent offspring, Spirit, hatched in March 2022.