Sometimes, Gloria Gajownik wishes people acted more like bald eagles.
Bald eagle families don't yell at each other (except for the occasional squawk), they don't criticize, and they seem kinder at times than humans, she said. And Gajownik, 71, would know. She has spent the last 15 years watching hours upon hours of bald eagle nest cameras.
Starting in 2011, Gajownik has logged on to the livestream of a Decorah, Iowa, nest after dinner and been glued to the screen until she goes to bed. Now, she monitors a chat room, answering questions and helping track every movement of "mom and dad Decorah" and their two eaglets. She worked for years in the insurance industry, where some people loved their cars more than their families, so, Gajownik said, this is her passion.
"Eagle people — we're different," she said.
Gajownik's immediate family members have died, but she is never alone with her bald eagles and her fellow eagle lovers. "Between the eagles and the people in the chat rooms, I feel like I have a big … extended family," she said.
Spring is primetime for bald eagle nests. Depending on the region, eagles mate and lay eggs sometime in late winter or early spring. If the eggs hatch, the eaglets will fledge around 12 weeks later and start their own lives.
The livestreams allow anyone, anywhere, to watch the birds at any time. They are on screens in DMV waiting rooms, hospitals, workplaces and schools. Diligent eagle monitors, like Gajownik, track every movement of the birds, from their PS (poop shoots) to their feedings to couple-esque moments between the parents.
Gajownik is one of millions of people who watch the more than 50 bald eagle nest cameras across the U.S. and who share countless photos, videos, memes and updates on Facebook groups and in chat rooms. The fans are the backbone of these nests, donating small-dollar amounts to keep some running and tracking every movement of the eagles and their eaglets. It's a dedicated and fiercely loyal group that sees the eagles just as much a part of the online community as the humans who run that community.
And, yes, most of the eagles and their eaglets have names.
"One of the most important aspects of the chat rooms and watching the eagles is that we're sharing it together," Gajownik said. "We watch through thick and thin."
A little bit of bald eagle history
After World War II, extensive use of the insecticide DDT was catastrophic to eagle populations, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. By 1963, only 417 nesting eagle pairs could be found in the U.S.
They were virtually gone from states in the northeast and southeast, said Tina Morris, author of the memoir Return to the Sky: The Surprising Story of How One Woman and Seven Eaglets Helped Restore the Bald Eagle.
In 1976, Morris, then a graduate student at Cornell University, started the first bald eagle reintroduction program in New York, using one of the first eagle cameras to monitor the birds. "Eagles are hard not to be involved with," Morris said. "They're majestic, they're powerful, they're resilient."
Their resilience is an attribute that many camera watchers love. Jenny Voisard, the media manager at Friends of Big Bear Valley, located in the San Bernardino National Forest in Southern California, said the valley's eagles, Jackie and Shadow, have taken over her life. Jackie and Shadow average thousands of livestream viewers daily, including over 30,000 on a recent Monday morning.
"Watching this couple … you're reminded of resilience and how to move forward and kind of how to get through your own life," Voisard said.
Since the reintroduction work, the bald eagle population has soared in the Lower 48 states, with an estimated 71,400 nesting pairs in a 2020 population report, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
"I think back to 1782, when they picked it to be the national symbol. They picked the right bird," Morris said.
So, how do you get a camera into a bald eagle nest?
"There's no way you're going to get a better look at a bald eagle's nest than on the eagle cam itself," said Randy Robinson, an instructional systems specialist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Robinson works at the National Conservation Training Center in West Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. The camera there follows Scout and Bella and their two newly hatched eaglets.
The camera lets Robinson observe the eagles up close throughout the spring, provide educational opportunities for kids and biweekly "Live! From the NCTC Eagle Nest" chats for the public, and make observational discoveries about the eagles. The nest cameras across the U.S. have a variety of uses, some for research purposes and others for pure curiosity.
To place the camera, a "knuckle-boom" truck with a 100-foot crane lifts a climber equipped with a harness about 95 feet aboveground, Robinson said. The climber, suspended in the air and attached to a rope at the end of the crane, reaches out to put a small security-like camera into the nest.
Today, the more than 50 cameras across the country range from high up in a tree to the edges of ragged cliffs. Placing a small, unnoticeable camera can be tricky and, for some nests, requires a helicopter.
The real citizen scientists
The people flocking to the livestreams have turned them into massive communities, which, at times, save the eagles from potential disaster.
Deb Stecyk, who lives in Alberta, Canada, has monitored eagle nests for over 20 years and focuses most of her free time chronicling the West Virginia eagles' movements in a daily spreadsheet and running a Facebook page.
Stecyk has the camera running on a computer in her house, and she records at night. In April of last year, for the first time in 22 years, the wind ripped the huge nest in West Virginia from its perch. All three of the 4-week-old eaglets died. Stecyk was the first one to tell Robinson.
Heartbroken community members mourned together in the chat rooms. One YouTube commenter said: "this absolutely destroyed me."
This year alone, eagle-eyed viewers helped save an eaglet in Pennsylvania after it swallowed a fishing hook. Fans also alerted the Institute for Wildlife Studies, a nonprofit that runs multiple eagle cameras on islands off the coast of Southern California, that a Fraser Point eaglet fell out of its nest. The eaglet was safely returned to the nest after a heroic rescue operation.
Wildlife experts approach human intervention with extreme caution. Brian Hudgens, the institute's vice president, said the team uses a minimalist approach and considers a variety of factors before intervening.
Robinson, who monitors the West Virginia nest, said that eagle parents will accept eaglets back into the nest after human interaction, despite popular myth. Staff will intervene if there is a human-caused problem, like an eagle swallowing a fishing hook. Humans going into a nest typically scares away the parents and could allow a predator to grab an eaglet, and the disruption could cause an eaglet to fall out of the nest.
Next year, the Institute for Wildlife Studies will ask the citizen scientists watching the cameras to track the prey the birds bring to the nest. "You have this many observers, and watching so closely. It's something we really want to take advantage of," Hudgens said.
"It's like watching a soap opera"
The draw of the cameras includes the inevitable tragedies, dramatic turns, and joyous occasions that happen each year.
"It's like watching a soap opera, " said Morris, the author of Return to the Sky. "Except they're birds."
There are cheating scandals, fertility struggles, early deaths, poisoned raccoons, snowstorms and fights with other birds. Most of the excitement revolves around the eaglets' struggle to make it out of the nests alive.
"As soon as you start watching those eagle cams, you recognize that the eagles are very similar to humans," Morris said. "They're monogamous. They're very loyal to their nest sites. They're incredibly good parents."
John Howe, the executive director of the nonprofit Raptor Resource Project, which runs many raptor cameras, including the one observing the Decorah eagles, said: "It's impossible to look at these cameras and not project your own family experience."
Voisard, the media manager at the Big Bear Valley nest, describes Jackie and Shadow lovingly, calling them "an old married couple."
Voisard said she hears dozens of stories about why people are so invested in the livestreams: Some viewers are stuck in an urban jungle with no nature. Some are recovering from tragedy or illness. Some are grandparents hanging out with their grandkids.
"It's very meaningful and emotional," she said. "It's very deep."
Voisard has six computer monitors around her house playing the livestream, so she doesn't miss a second. "It's a little ridiculous," she said, smiling.
But more than just watching the eagles, it's a community. Jackie and Shadow have 2.6 million followers across their official social media platforms. Some 35 contractors and volunteers watch the nest 24/7 to keep track of the birds. Right now, the fans are attempting to raise millions of dollars to keep a development from springing up less than a mile from the nest.
Gajownik, the eagle superfan, lives in Chattanooga, Tenn., miles from the rural Iowa eagles she watches. Every year, she goes on a four-day trip to see the birds in person and meet up with her chat room friends.
Gajownik plans to attend the meetup this July. In the meantime, she will continue meticulously watching the eagles, "probably until I die," she added with a chuckle.
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