Was the young bald eagle that dropped by Jackie and Shadow's nest their baby?

"When bald eagle power couple Jackie and Shadow's two baby girls flew their Big Bear nest earlier this summer, it was bittersweet. Thousands of adoring fans had watched them hatch on a 24-hour webcam that monitors the family and now they were growing up - fast. But one of the internet-famous youngsters, Gizmo, may have just dropped by her childhood home, an unusual occurrence for an eagle of nearly six months."

"Like Gizmo, this eagle had a dark tail with hardly any white feathers, said Sandy Steers, executive director of Friends of Big Bear Valley. The corners of its mouth, called the gape, stopped around the middle of its eyes and turned up, which someone described as a "Mona Lisa smile," she said. After offloading a "poop shot," the eagle flew off - revealing a gap in the feathers on the trailing edge of its left wing, Steers wrote in a Facebook post about the incident."

Jackie and Shadow's two juvenile eagles fledged earlier in the summer after thousands watched them hatch on a 24-hour webcam. One juvenile, likely Gizmo, returned to the couple's favorite roost tree and then to their nest, remaining overnight and moving sticks around. Observers noted specific field marks: a dark tail with little white, an upturned gape described as a "Mona Lisa smile," and a gap in feathers on the trailing edge of the left wing. The juvenile offloaded a "poop shot," later carried a fish to the tree's "basement," and a Friends of Big Bear Valley Facebook post drew about 11,000 likes.

Read at Los Angeles Times