A large bald eagle from the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo, who had flown to the Menlo Park area on Saturday, Feb. 23, returned to its handler at around 6 p.m. Monday in a churchyard in Redwood City, the handler, John Aikin, said Monday night.
What persuaded the female eagle to come down from its perch? Hunger and thirst, some prompting by a handler using hand gestures and a whistle, and the tossing of a dead quail in such a way that the eagle could see it, Aikin said.
The eagle, named Sequoia, “ate a quail and a mouse and looked at us like we were all to blame,” he said, referring to an eagle’s practice of making its feathers stand out to show that it’s irritated. But her irritation quickly faded. “She just sat calmly on the (gloved) fist and was happy to be back,” Aikin said.
Sequoia had been tree-sitting this past weekend in the Suburban Park area of Menlo Park and in North Fair Oaks neighborhood.
Her handlers allow her to fly free every day in Byxbee Park at the eastern end of Embarcadero Road in Palo Alto, the exceptions being very hot days and when she is molting.
“We like her to go out and soar circles so people can watch her fly,” Aikin said.
She is released on weekend days at around 2 p.m. and on weekdays at 4 p.m., Aikin said. Her schedule can be found on Facebook and the zoo’s website, he said.
About every three years or so, Sequoia goes on a three-day vacation, Aikin said. But because she’s vacationing without the benefit of her handlers being there, food and water become hard to find. When they returned her to her enclosure in Palo Alto, “she jumped right down into her bathtub and drank heartily,” Aikin said.
She does not feed herself. Her hunting skills are hampered by a diminished ability to use her tail feathers, the result of a gunshot wound when she was young. That, and she was not raised in the wild.
“I’ve never known her to kill anything,” Aikin said.
This soon-to-be 25-year-old eagle has been cared for at the Palo Alto zoo for the past six months, Aikin said. Before that, she lived at the San Francisco Zoo, where she had been since she was six months old. Aikin tended to her there as well, he said.
Sequoia is capable of extended flight — she once flew to Ano Nuevo State Park in Pescadero from San Francisco, he said. Why let her fly?
“She likes it, we like it, and we think it’s a great way to see a bald eagle,” Aikin said.
Sequoia is taken on visits to organized groups, and groups sometimes visit her. She has a wingspan of about 7 feet. While there is inherent risk in letting her loose, the burden is worth the cost, he said.
“It’s so spectacular to see her fly.”
The San Francisco Zoo ended its eagle-breeding program, and Aikin managed to have Sequoia transferred to Palo Alto, though as is the case with all bald eagles, Sequoia is the property of the U.S. government.
In this incident, she had come within three feet of a handler’s leather glove but flew off, perhaps because she was confused, Aiken said. When she “leaves,” as Aikin puts it, it’s usually a three-day excursion but one without food, he said.
“She’ll fly around to look for a way to get to us,” he said. “We’re really in a waiting game until she feels comfortable enough and motivated enough to come down.”
Bald eagles are flighty and high-strung, he said. Something as innocent as a colorful piece of clothing can be alienating. For food, she likes dead rats, mice, quail, rabbit and fish.
Last Saturday, North Fair Oaks resident Scott Peterson, who works for the Palo Alto Weekly, said that he’d been out in his backyard around 4 p.m. and had seen a large bird soaring a couple of hundred feet above some redwood trees.
“I noticed it because it was so large,” he said.
Peterson said that he’d been unaware that he might have been looking at an eagle.
“That was a huge, huge bird,” he said, “the biggest bird I’ve seen in 30 years of living here.”
Photographer and Menlo Park resident Jim Vanides observed Sequoia and photographed her the next day around 5 p.m. from Hedge Road. He said he spotted the eagle in pine trees along the Dumbarton railroad spur line near the Suburban Park area of Menlo Park.
Related article:
Go Sequoia Go! Be free and don’t look back. Eagles are not meant to be pets or curiosities.
The related article at the bottom of this article states that Sequoia cannot live in the wild because of a gunshot wound that paralyzed her tail, which is why she is a resident of the zoos. Yet this article mentions her soaring in the sky above someone’s back yard. Does the paralyzed tail prevent her from hunting? This is confusing. Perhaps the author, Dave Boyce, could clarify why she is able to fly so well with a paralyzed tail. Or has she just forgotten how to hunt?
Having discussed Sequoia with JMZ employees , I learned that Sequoia cannot live free due to bone damage as well as a paralyzed tail. She has not hunted since a very young age, so probably never got a chance to hone her skills. There is a steep learning curve for a young, clumsy eagle learning to hunt efficiently.
She has been exercised every Saturday at 2 pm at Bixby Park. She may have seen an opportunity to run for it, or something, such as a shiny object, lenses of binoculars, or noisy humans may have frightened her into taking off.
My friend saw her yesterday morning in a tree near Illinois Street. I didn’t believe him until he showed me a picture.
Hide your toy poodles!
ICBS reported that the eagle has landed.
I saw a very large bird soaring far above the Sequoia trees in Menlo Oaks this past weekend. This bird seemed to have a long cord or something attached to one of its feet — does Sequoia fly around with a tether on one of her feet? Does she interact with other birds? There was another large bird flying near her.
Thanks, Zoologist, for answering my questions regarding Sequoia’s flying and hunting abilities.
She has apparently flown off many, many times before, but the SF to Ano Nuevo trip was the farthest she had ever flown. As usual, when really hungry, she returns to her handler.
i was walking in the baylands a couple of days before this happened and saw her and her handler. beautiful
I didn’t realize we had a bald eagle living in Palo Alto. So exciting! This is national news: I first read about her escape and return in the NY Times!!
What a treat for those who saw her flying wild. I’ve been thrilled to see a great blue heron in the neighborhood, and will keep an eye out for Sequoia in the future!