A baby eagle executes its first shaky flight from the nest, or fledges, at around 12 weeks of age, but its first period away from home is fraught with peril, as it often ends up on the ground where it is vulnerable to collisions with cars and trucks.
On July 11, Sgt. Giralde, of Mohave County Sheriff’s Office, had an encounter he says he will not forget. While serving on duty at a construction site, he saw the brown feathers of a live eagle fluttering on the asphalt about 100 feet behind his unit, dangerously close to traffic whooshing by along the road.
“It kept getting close to the live traffic lane. It would not fly away even with traffic going right by it,” the officer told The Epoch Times. “It did leave at one point but came back a short time later. We attempted to get it away from the traffic and that is when it went under one of the construction workers vehicles.”
Sgt. Giralde snapped a photo of the eagle and sent it to the Arizona Raptor Center, who confirmed it was a baby golden eagle and sent some of their staff in Kingman to retrieve it. Meanwhile, they answered the question Sgt. Giralde had posed, whether he could grab the eagle and bring it into his unit to cool off in the AC.
If he could, they answered.
They tried moving the construction worker’s vehicle. The eaglet “did not appear concerned with me as I got within feet of it, trying to get it to move away from the live traffic lane,” Sgt. Giralde said. “At that point, it went under my unit.” Lying on the ground, he added, it “appeared to be tired.”
He picked up a large piece of scrap cloth and walked over to the baby raptor, which darkened under his shadow and looked at him. The eaglet hardly moved as the officer leaned over and draped the cloth overtop the bird, scooped it up, and brought it into the backseat.
“When I picked it up it did not fight and just laid in the back seat for a while,” the officer said. “After about 30 minutes inside the vehicle, it stood up.”
Sgt. Giralde allowed fellow officers to snap photos of the eagle while his body camera captured the extraordinary moment on video, which was later posted to Mohave County Sheriff’s Facebook, garnering almost 2,000 reactions.
A baby raptor’s crucial first period away from the nest is when the eaglet perfects its flight skills and starts to hunt insects and other small game to supplement the temporary meals still being supplied by nearby parents, until the baby becomes independent and flies off to fend for itself.
The danger is often great during this period, and the actions the sergeant took that day were critical. Game and wildlife officials strongly advise people normally to not interfere with a baby raptor struggling or grounded and will have park rangers step in if necessary. Although the majority of eaglets that fledge will not survive, this period is where they must learn to hunt solo to stay alive.
In the case of the baby eagle, Sgt. Giralde was told what was in store.
“The Raptor Center had also sent people that day and were taking the eagle back to their rehabilitation center where it would be taught how to hunt,” he told the newspaper. “They had also told me that eagles act like that a few days before they die of starvation, as they have not learned how to hunt yet.”
