The Empty Nest Edition

Steph Balzer (SB) publishes Cento and is co-founder of Second Act, a community for mid-career professionals who are pivoting to careers they love. She's written a few WITI editions, including The Emotional Language Edition and The Organizing Edition.

Steph here. Soon, bald eagle parents Jackie and Shadow will become empty nesters. Their chicks, Sunny and Gizmo, who hatched in March, will fledge in a few weeks. Once they begin to fly, their parents will teach them to fish and hunt on their own, and as the youngsters get the hang of it, they’ll return to the nest less and less often. By late summer, they’ll likely migrate from the San Bernardino National Forest in Southern California, launching independent lives as adults. We will never see them again.

Why is this interesting?

Jackie and Shadow aren’t the only ones who will be adjusting to their empty nest. Thanks to the nonprofit Friends of Big Bear Valley, 626,000 subscribers to the Big Bear Bald Eagle Live Nest Cam have been watching the eaglets grow up with a million-dollar view of Big Bear Lake.

I’m not saying eagle watching has become my entire personality, but on a scale of knowing nothing about these birds to identifying an eagle’s age by the color of its eyes, I’m in pretty deep. The babies and I are coworking at this point. By day, I write while they cuddle, toddle around, do their wingersize, bicker and fight, and play “nest” on my second screen.

My fealty to this avian family is shared across my human family and friends. We’re dedicated, as if our watchful eyes are literally helping to protect and raise the chicks. Variously, I text people about them. I research eaglet development. I share eagle facts in the WITI Slack.

So far, their lives have been the stuff of real drama. The community and I were worried about hypothermia after the third sibling did not survive a snow storm. We tuned in to the terror of a raven predator perched on a tree limb nearby, probably strategizing with its buddies about how to snatch a young one. We’ve watched them sleep as hard as toddlers, limbs and wings akimbo, their breath heaving their entire bodies. We’ve marveled at how they’ve transformed from piles of grey lint you pull from a vacuum cleaner bag, to rotisserie chickens, to gangly teenagers with bad haircuts. Only recently have they grown into the size of their beaks.

Our text convos look like this:

“Omg I just saw one of the babies back its butt up to the edge of the nest and poop off the side! A little squirt. Like silly string.”

“I saw that once but they didn’t go to the edge—they are potty trained!”

And this:

“The babies can feed themselves?!”

“I was watching! They still plop down though. One just sort of fell over and stayed that way.”

As the internet goes, silliness abounds. Someone observed that Shadow wears skinny jeans and Jackie is in mom jeans, and I cannot unsee this because it’s the perfect description of their legs. In one set of stills, the entire family is together, looking like they’re posing for professional photos. My niece pointed out that the babies’ toes look like Cheetos, and then there’s this, from Reddit: “Can we talk about those floppy, rubber chicken feet on these eaglets though?”

But it’s not actually the cuteness that keeps me hooked. The tender part is how Jackie and Shadow have given me the chance to share a compressed experience of raising young ones with friends and family who are on the cusp of becoming empty nesters themselves. We all got hooked just before the chicks hatched. Since then, we’ve witnessed what seems like years of parenting and child development socked into a few weeks’ time, all the while becoming more aware that this story culminates in a rite of passage that’s magical—and a loss. After the eagle family crosses the empty nest threshold, we’ll probably text about what Jackie and Shadow are going through, and of course, we’ll be speaking about ourselves.

What a relief for my parents, I remember thinking at age eighteen when I left for college: Now they have more time to explore photography, or take art classes, or go back to school to become anthropologists! Or whatever! I could only comprehend the opportunities that had opened for them, not how they had to let go. I left my little sister behind as well, and she must have felt some loneliness, though I’ve never thought to ask. Experience begets empathy.

Are Sunny and Gizmo ready to fledge? I’m growing more anxious as the day nears. They will face new dangers: the entire first year of their lives is quite vulnerable.

The nest is certainly looking crowded, though. Early this morning, as I sat down to write, the sun was reflecting off the glassy lake. I watched Sunny practice flapping, and for the first time to my eye, incorporating tiny jumps and hops! A flurry of downy feathers floated up as a result, like a halo of dandelion fluff to be swept away by the wind. (SB)