The eagle's OK; Visitor calls police over ‘hurt’ bird

A bald eagle appearing to be in distress Monday at the Carbon County Environmental Education Center prompted a call to police from a concerned visitor, but the bird had simply just finished laying her first egg of the season.

Naturalist Franklin Klock said a visitor was walking the center’s boardwalk when she saw the eagle “chest down, screaming and hollering.”

The center was closed for the Presidents Day holiday, so after leaving a message for the emergency contact person, Susan Gallagher, she called police.

“Summit Hill police called me at home, and as soon as they described the situation to me, I almost certainly knew what had happened,” Klock said.

“Sure enough, I met the police out there and Rennie was sitting on her first egg of the year.”

Tricia Kern, the visitor who was concerned about the eagle, posted on the center’s Facebook page, “I thought she was very badly hurt. I didn’t know what to do. I just didn’t want her to die.”

Rennie, like many female bald eagles in the region, lays eggs at this time every year, Klock said. The eagle in Hanover, the popular star of the live camera, for example, laid her first egg on Valentine’s Day.

“The previous two years, Rennie and the eagle on that camera have actually laid their first eggs on the very same day,” Klock said.

The egg laid Monday, he added, is infertile. It is a process the bodies of female eagles go through every year as they do not need a male to produce the eggs. Rennie, however, does not know of the infertility yet, leading to her protective attitude.

“She will take care of the egg like it has a baby inside,” Klock said of Rennie. “Eventually, she will realize it doesn’t have the vibrations or movements inside it that a fertile egg would and she’ll abandon it. They normally incubate for 28 days.”

Rennie came to the center after she was hit by a car while feeding on a roadkill deer on Route 93 in Nesquehoning, just above the prison, in 2001.

For the first decade the center had Rennie, she did not lay any eggs and Klock said they first assumed she was male. She started laying eggs back in 2011. Klock previously said because of U.S. Fish and Wildlife regulations, the eggs must be removed and destroyed. When the center removes the eggs, they replace them with cue balls in a nest that Klock builds. Rennie will then sit on the “eggs” for up to 2 weeks through all kinds of weather.

This isn’t the first time concern over Rennie has prompted a call to law enforcement.

“Once, when Rennie was away at a program, someone called 911 because they thought she was stolen,” Klock said.

While he recommended against calling police when someone is worried about an animal, Klock said the situation showed how concerned and caring many people are about the center’s wildlife.

“It’s nice to know people care that much that they went to the extent they did,” Klock said.

“They are the same type of people who bring us wildlife when they see it injured on the side of the road or out in nature somewhere instead of just walking by it and letting it go.”