At times, the Big Bear nest camera showed little more than snow and an eagle’s yellow beak. Jackie was still there, with three eggs beneath her. In other seasons, the same view held chicks trying to sit upright, Shadow arriving with nesting material, or a young eagle preparing to leave for the first time.
The tributes to Jackie in Big Bear are one way to remember her. Another is to return to the scenes themselves: the chick first called Jack, the persistent newcomer who became her mate, and the youngsters she raised through storms and ordinary days alike.
Ten moments from Jackie’s life
1. The chick first called Jack, 2012
In a photograph taken on March 6, 2012, a dark eaglet sits beside an adult in a nest built atop a dead tree. The chick was then known as Jack. Local observers had documented something new: a bald-eagle chick in Big Bear Valley, where no successful nesting had previously been recorded.
When the youngster grew larger than both parents, Ricky and Lucy, observers identified the chick as female and changed the name to Jackie. Years later, Friends of Big Bear Valley linked the adult Jackie to that youngster through continued observations and age-related plumage. Because she wasn’t banded, that identification remains a well-supported belief rather than a confirmed tracking record.
2. Shadow kept coming back, 2018
Shadow entered an occupied nest. Jackie already had a mate, Mr. B, and their youngster Stormy was still around. All three tried to drive the newcomer away, but he continued returning.
Mr. B eventually departed, and Jackie accepted Shadow. Their partnership began with a contested place in the nest, then developed into years of shared incubation, food deliveries and chick care. The early photograph below shows them examining an egg on March 6, 2019, the following breeding season, rather than the moment of Shadow’s arrival.
3. Simba and Cookie arrived, April 2019
Two small chicks made Jackie and Shadow parents together for the first time. Their eggs hatched on April 14 and 15, 2019, and the youngsters were named Simba and Cookie.
Their first brood brought an early loss. Cookie died at about six weeks old during severe weather. Simba continued growing, learning to balance on branches and preparing for flight. On July 23, he fledged. The season left both a photograph of two chicks side by side and the record of one youngster reaching the sky.
4. Spirit hatched and kept the other egg close, March 2022
Spirit hatched on March 3, 2022, after two seasons that hadn’t produced a surviving chick. Four days later, the camera captured the little eaglet sitting upright beside the remaining, unhatched egg.
That egg stayed in the nest as Spirit grew. FOBBV’s observers described the chick snuggling against it and sometimes guarding it when a parent came close, comparing it to a security blanket. We can’t know what the egg meant to Spirit, but the repeated behavior became a distinctive detail of the season. Spirit fledged on May 31.
5. Jackie’s nearly 62-hour snow vigil, February 2024
Snow accumulated until Jackie was almost hidden. Periodically, she stood through it, adjusted the three eggs and settled down to incubate again. By the time Shadow took over on February 7, she’d completed an uninterrupted shift of 61 hours and 58 minutes, the longest FOBBV had recorded for her.
Shadow waited at the nest before Jackie climbed out and departed. He then had to negotiate the snow bank around the bowl to reach the eggs. None of that year’s eggs ultimately hatched, and the reason wasn’t established. The vigil remains a record of extraordinary care, without a happy ending being added to it.
6. Shadow tried to settle over three eggs, February 2024
A few days before that long vigil ended, Shadow encountered a new problem. Jackie had laid a third egg on January 31. When she finally left for a break the next afternoon, he arrived to find three eggs where he’d previously tended two.
He looked between them and tried to position himself over the row. Then he rolled them closer together and settled down. It’s a small, almost comic scene alongside the storm footage: an experienced parent adjusting to a changed nest. The accompanying camera view, dated February 4, shows the three-egg clutch a few days after his first encounter.
7. All three chicks appeared at breakfast, March 2025
After the unsuccessful 2023 and 2024 seasons, the nest filled with new movement. One egg hatched on March 3, another on March 4, and the third on March 8. At the 6:13 a.m. feeding that morning, all three chicks were visible together.
The tiny birds jostled in the bowl as their parents fed them. It was the first time all three eggs in one of Jackie and Shadow’s clutches had hatched. One chick, later named Misty, died during a subsequent winter storm. Sunny and Gizmo survived. The three-chick scene belongs to their history alongside that loss, not in place of it.
8. Sunny and Gizmo both became fledglings, June 2025
Sunny left the nest on June 2. Gizmo followed on June 7, completing a milestone: Jackie and Shadow had raised two eaglets to fledging in the same season for the first time.
Those departures weren’t simultaneous, and fledging didn’t mean the young eagles were suddenly independent. The parents continued caring for them beyond the nest. After weeks of growing, practicing with their wings and working through sibling rivalry, both youngsters could now move through the surrounding trees. FOBBV later observed them flying around together.
9. A replacement clutch brought Sandy and Luna, April 2026
The first clutch of 2026 failed. Ravens had entered the nest and consumed egg contents, and the season could have ended there. Instead, Jackie laid another two eggs, on February 24 and 27.
The two new eaglets hatched on consecutive days: Sandy on April 4 and Luna on April 5. In the morning photograph, one chick sits upright while its newly emerged sibling rests beside shell material. The nest had returned to the close, constant work of feeding and sheltering two very small birds.
10. Her final brood moved beyond the nest, June 2026
Sandy’s first departure on June 28 began awkwardly. During movement around the nest, she lost her footing and dropped into lower branches. She recovered and subsequently flew. Jackie located her and continued caring for her away from the nest.
Luna fledged the next morning, June 29, at 9:24:43 a.m., reaching the Simba Tree. The two departures completed Jackie’s final breeding season with another pair of fledglings. They still needed their parents, and the following observations included Jackie bringing fish to Sandy.
FOBBV’s history of the Big Bear eagles and season-by-season nesting record preserve the dates. The cameras preserve something more immediate: Jackie finding her youngsters outside the nest and keeping them fed. Her young could fly. She still had fish to bring.
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