A baby bald eagle reintroduced to the nesting area near White Rock Lake, but what's next?

The baby bald eagle that fell from its nest amid last week's storms was reintroduced to its nesting area near White Rock Lake over the weekend, and although it is still too early to To be sure, the signs look good for the eagle, officials say.

City of Dallas Conservation Officer Brett Johnson said The Dallas Morning News Monday evening that at least one of the adult bald eagles was seen in the nest with the eaglet earlier in the day.

Johnson said he saw the eagle moving around the nesting area Monday morning.

“We found that it seems to be able to glide quite well,” he said. “I was there earlier today, apparently he jumped, climbed the tree and was sliding through the trees.”

Laura Johnson, executive director of the Blackland Prairie Raptor Center, said earlier in the day that Monday afternoon's reunification process “looked positive.”

“What happens is the baby cries and the parents respond to it, so that's definitely a good thing,” Johnson said Monday afternoon..

After several rounds of storms ravaged parts of North Texas last week, Dallas city officials announced that eaglets that hatched near White Rock Lake had fallen from their nests. One of the birds was found by area residents and taken to the center located in Collin County.

Sunday was a “deadline” for the eagle to be released into its original nesting area so the parents could recognize the bird as their own, Johnson said.

The nest location was only in an urban area, Johnson said. Most of the birds rescued by the center come from further north, she added.

“We needed to make sure the habitat was quiet enough that we wouldn't accidentally startle the parents, so we barricaded a little area to give them plenty of space,” Johnson said. “Thank God they're used to the sound of sirens and things like that, because it wasn't something we could really control.”

Additionally, due to damage to the old nest, city authorities and the raptor center created a makeshift nest for the eagle. She said the eagle is about 2 1/2 feet tall and described it as healthy.

“We did x-rays, blood tests and we didn't see anything troubling, so we just kept an eye on the eagle. We thought there might be some soft tissue damage because initially it favored one wing, but that also got better very quickly,” Johnson said.

Johnson said someone from the center will check on the bird every two hours to make sure it is safe. The main sign the rescue center looks for is parents caring for the eagle, she said.

“When the parents start feeding the baby, that's what we're really interested in: They're engaging with the eagle and taking care of it again,” she added.

She said there was no specific timeline for when the center would return the bird to the raptor center, where the eaglet would be raised to adulthood.

“Right now we're kind of evaluating it, day by day. But if we don’t see parents interacting in the next few days, we will probably have to intervene,” Laura Johnson said.

Royse City resident Chris Giblin, who has been photographing the bald eagles since they first appeared near the lake in late 2021, said he was near the nesting ground when the raptor center and city crews came to release the eagle on Sunday morning.

A few hours after the eagle's release, Giblin said, he spotted its parents around the nesting area and said they “seemed excited,” but he added that the adult bald eagles weren't interacting. not with the eagle.

“This hope is a positive conclusion to their love story,” he said. “It’s not just their love story; it’s the love story they have with us. The community is angry about this and has been devastated in the last week, so now there is this chance for hope.