As thousands of viewers watched on a livestream, one of the two Big Bear eaglets – Sandy – took a steep, apparently accidental plunge from a tree branch and then another one on Sunday morning, but shortly after that, she spread her wings and soared away.
“She’s fine,” said Jenny Voisard, media manager with Friends of Big Bear Valley, in a brief interview early Sunday afternoon. “I would just urge everyone to be calm.”
As Sandy took her dramatic tumble from the tree – at 11:24 a.m., according to the livestream timestamp – viewers were stunned.
“I’m on the live cam now. OMG. I’m having heart palpitations right now. I hope there are no injuries,” Lina Cabanila said in a Big Bear group post that showed the eaglet’s tumble after a collision with its sibling in the “front porch” branches of the large nest.
“This was bound to happen the way they have been out on a limb then trying to hop-fly over the other to get back to the nest. Hopefully, Sandy will be OK…..” said Larry Pilkinton in the same thread.
“Hope wings aren’t injured!” said Jeannie Kendrick.
Voisard said it appeared that what Sandy initially took was a “fludge” – a premature fledge or flight.
“Jackie is on scene,” she added shortly after the plunge, referring to the eaglets’ mother, who could be seen among the trees shortly after Sandy fell.
Sandy’s actual flight, at 11:30 a.m., happened off camera, Voisard said.
The 2026 eaglets made their debut on April 4 and 5, part of the extended bird family of Jackie and her mate, Shadow, and have been the center of a 24/7 livestream operated by Friends of Big Bear Valley.
An eagle is considered a fledgling after it has grown the necessary feathers and wing muscles that would allow the bird to take its first flight from its nest.
Voisard said earlier this month that eaglets typically fledge from a nest 10 to 14 weeks after birth.
Signs that eaglets are ready to take flight are when they begin to hover in their nest by flapping their wings, Voisard said.
“They’ll start to branch out and perch on some of the other branches,” Vosiard said. “They’ll move out and go out to the ‘front porch branch.’”
As nearly 17,000 viewers watched on a live stream on Saturday afternoon, those behaviors were on full display. One of the birds remained on a branch next to the nest, while the other moved between the branch and the nest. Both stretched their wings out at times, appearing on the verge of taking flight.
On Sunday morning, more than 20,000 viewers were watching the live cameras.
Voisard previously said that Sandy and Luna would be likely to stick around for some time after taking flight, remaining under the care of their eagle parents and learning from them.
The young eagles don’t stay for long, though.
Within weeks of leaving the nest, the young birds migrate hundreds of miles north to join others of their kind in search of salmon and other food, according to the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife.
“Young bald eagles are nomadic the first few years of their lives, and they can travel far and wide before they settle down to take a mate and build a nest,” Voisard said.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
Staff writers Samantha Gowen and Sean Emery contributed to this report.
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