California Bald Eagles Spotted Raising Baby Red-Tailed Hawks in Their Nest Alongside Eaglet

A birdwatcher thought the first baby red-tailed hawk brought to the nest was food for the eagles, but the mother eagle adopted and fed the baby bird instead

Two bald eagles in Santa Clara County, California, recently added some unlikely residents to their nest — two baby red-tailed hawks.

In mid-May, wildlife photographer Doug Gillard noticed a female bald eagle carrying an eyas, the term for a baby hawk, to her nest. He assumed the eyas was a meal for the eagle's eaglet, a baby bird far larger than the little hawk. When he shared a photo of the scene on Facebook on May 20, he warned his followers that "nature can be cruel."

A week later, he was surprised to learn the young hawk was still alive and living in the eagle's nest. Gillard nicknamed it Tuffy and told Bay Nature that he was unsure of the sex of the little bird. Gillard, a professor at Life Chiropractic College West in Hayward, California, later published a video of the female adult eagle feeding and caring for Tuffy.

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Earlier this month, Gillard noticed another baby red-tailed hawk living in the nest. He photographed the two baby hawks standing next to an eaglet, which he nicknamed Lola, showing how the young eagle dwarfed the baby hawks. Red-tailed hawks reach wingspans between 3.4 and 4.8 feet as adults, while an adult bald eagle's wingspan can reach between 5.9 and 7.5 feet.

The second eyas did not survive in the nest. A nearby rancher told Gillard the father eagle killed and ate the eyas, Gillard told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Gillard has continued to closely monitor the situation in the eagle's nest with the remaining hawk and has kept the nest's exact location off social media to protect the birds. The birds mostly ignore any humans who have located the nest, Gillard told Bay Nature.

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Since the second eyas died, Tuffy has become nervous. "Whenever a big eagle comes, he runs to the back of the nest and hides, then comes back out to eat," Gillard told Bay Nature.

On June 12, Lola left the nest for the first time. The mother eagle then brought three meals - a duckling, squirrel, and another small bird - back to the nest, possibly to attract Lola back to the nest, Gillard told the Chronicle. However, Tuffy ate the food instead.

Birdwatchers are now concerned about when Tuffy will fledge — the term for when birds grow feathers large enough to fly on their own.

"Bald eagle fledglings also get fed by their parents, but I would be concerned that the female eagle here seems a bit ambivalent about Tuffy and that she might be even more dubious once he leaves the nest," Katie LaBarbera, science director for the conservation group San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory, told the Chronicle.

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LaBarbera predicts a "rough road ahead" for Tuffy. The bird may think of itself as an eagle and try to bond with young eagles who are not as accepting as the mother eagle who adopted it.

Researchers and birdwatchers have seen baby red-tail hawks adopted by bald eagles before. In 2017, researchers saw a case on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. It was unclear how a red-tailed hawk ended up in a bald eagle's nest in that case, but retired wildlife biology professor David Bird told CBC News that it might have been intended as a meal for eaglets.

Members of the Friends of the Redding Eagles Facebook group, where Gillard shared his photos, also spotted a red-tailed hawk and bald eagle pairing in 2019.

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