Baby Big Bear bald eagle grows up, soars away … now what? – San Bernardino Sun

In the early dawn, Spirit the young bald eagle was antsy in her nest 145 feet up in a Jeffrey pine overlooking Big Bear Lake. Web viewers held their breath.

At 5:49 a.m. Tuesday, May 31, just as the sun broke over the ridge, the raptor hopped up on a jutting branch, tested her wings, and took off, leaving just the sound of the wind and forest birdsong in the nest that had been her only home since hatching in March.

Until that point her whole life has been captured on a live webcam, from when her egg was laid and her first feeding in the snow, to her first attempts at flapping her wings, and it has been watched by tens of thousands of people across the planet.

Sandy Steers, executive director of Friends of Big Bear Valley, which runs the nest cam, said earlier this month that there’s no telling where Spirit will go when she fledges (leaves the nest) and identifying her will not be easy as no one has put an identification band on her leg.