Photo by Wes Phelan.
One of Nick and Nora’s bald eaglets that fell out of its nest during the severe weather storm has been reunited with its family in White Rock Lake.
During the May 28 North Texas storm, one of the worst storms in Dallas history, two of White Rock Lake’s eaglets were reported missing after a third of its nest was taken by severe weather.
At around 11 a.m., Brett Johnson with Dallas Park and Recreation was notified that one of the eaglets had been found in a neighbor’s yard 30 feet from its home. The working theory was that one of the eaglets might have flexed its wings causing it to catch ferocious wind and be blown across the creek. The other could have fallen straight down and taken by the flood.
The saved eaglet was taken to the Rogers Wildlife Rehabilitation Center and was reintroduced to its parents on Sunday. The eaglet was taken by Nick and Nora and brought into its rebuilt nest.
Now the returned eaglet is giving its parents and volunteers a scare as it began playing with its wings and jumping up and down before it suddenly discovered that it could get about 10 feet of lift hopping from tree to tree and gliding.
After about 30 minutes, the little rebellious troublemaker decided to glide across the creek into the neighborhood and spent the next three hours with urban biologists and volunteers chasing him around the neighborhood.
“It’s like a little kid that suddenly discovers its mobile and boy, boy was [it] mobile,” Johnson said.
The eaglet is unfazed by what happened during the storm, beep-boppin’ from branch to branch.
From here on and into the fall the eagles can pop up anywhere around the lake, Johnson added. For right now mother Nora is going to keep feeding and protecting her baby and the eagle family will begin adding more sticks to their nest anytime soon.
“It’s the next chapter in the story and we’ll just have to let it play out and see where it goes honestly,” Johnson said.
