Watch Virginia eaglet that fell 90 feet from nest get released back into wild
An eaglet that fell from his nest as distressed fans watched on a webcam has been returned to the wild in northern Virginia.
Pat the bald eagle soared into the sky upon his release on Thursday in a wooded area of Leesburg about 30 miles northwest of Washington, D.C.
"One, two three!" Ed Clark, CEO of the Virginia Wildlife Center, said as he pushed off from a crouched position to help Pat gain momentum. "Get up in the air, bird. Get in that breeze and go."
As Pat flapped his wings and slowly began gaining elevation, onlookers cheered and Clark encouraged him: "There you go, there you go!"
Pat's long-awaited released, which was posted on YouTube, comes four months after he fell from his nest at the tender eaglet age of 10 weeks old.
Here's everything you need to know about Pat, his two siblings Pi and Flora, and his doting parents, Rosa and Martin:
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When was Pat born?
Pat hatched earlier this year on March 17, St. Patrick's Day. The holiday inspired his name, which was selected following a public contest.
Pat is the middle eaglet of three siblings. His oldest sibling, Pi, also was named for the day he hatched, March 14, which corresponds with the mathematical symbol Pi, or 3.14. His youngest sibling, Flora, hatched two days after Pat.
For weeks, the Dulles Greenway Eagle Cam livestreamed the eaglets and their parents to fans from around the world.
At any given moment, people were watching from Japan, Australia, Brazil, Russia, Spain, Finland and Canada, among other locations, said Terry Hoffman, a spokesman for the Dulles Greenway, the group running the eagle cam.
How did Pat fall?
On May 29, Pat was seen on the livestream slipping as some of his nest collapsed seemingly out of nowhere. Unable to fly, Pat futilely flapped his wings to try to return to the nest before he fell 90 feet to the forest floor.
The groups that watch over the eagles and maintain the camera, the Dulles Greenway and Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy, found and rescued Pat later in the day.
Luckily, Pat wasn't injured but wildlife officials decided not to return him to his family because it could have been dangerous for Pi and Flora.
"Human intervention at this stage could cause the eaglets to prematurely leave the nest and be injured," the Dulles Greenway posted at the time.
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Where has Pat been living?
Since Pat's fall, he spent most of the past four months at the Wildlife Center of Virginia in Waynesboro, dining on a diet of rats and fish.
There, he made progress with his flying abilities, gained strength, learned how to capture prey and socialized with other eagles, according to the Dulles Greenway.
Wildlife officials also decided it was best to keep him at the facility because of concerns about his parents' ability to keep three fast-growing eaglets fed, and because the nest could no longer hold all the birds.
Earlier this week, his caregivers found that Pat's strength and stamina had improved over the past few weeks and that the bird had been able to fly across a flight pen back and forth at least 10 times. He was deemed ready for release.
"We are thrilled to release Pat back into the wetlands today as a healthy eagle,” Reneé Hamilton, CEO of Dulles Greenway said at Pat's release party on Thursday.
"This was the perfect storybook ending," she said.
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What happened to Pi and Flora?
Pi also fell from the nest before being ready to fly. Pi fell on June 2 and was briefly reunited with Pat at a rehabilitation center.
While Pat was still fairly small and needed a lot more time to develop his flight skills, Pi was able to return to the wild just five days after falling.
Pi and Flora were first seen back together on June 12, when their dutiful parents delivered food to the eaglets. The wildlife camera has been capturing them over the past several months, perching in trees, feeding and spending time with their parents.
"We see Pi and Flora every day on the cam in the river or the snag tree," Hoffman said.
What next?
Pi, Pat and Flora's parents, Rosa and Martin, arrived to the nest in 2021. They're named after civil rights leaders Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr.
The camera that captures their daily lives were installed between the 2021 and 2022 nesting seasons. Last year, the camera captured the birth of Rosa and Martin's eaglet, named Orion, and his successful departure from the nest a few months later.
Now that this year's nesting season is officially over, their nest is awfully quiet.
Once eagles finish raising their young, they split up for the season and live solitary lives, usually in and around their home territory, and sleep away from their nest, according to the National Eagle Center.
"Eagles are solitary, not social, creatures," the agency says. "They pair up in the later winter or early spring to raise the young and work together as a team until the young learn to fly, and then they return to the solitary life, looking for fish, watching the world, and soaring high in the sky on those thermal currents on bright, sunny days. Total freedom!"
Fans of the eagle cam hope to welcome Rosa and Martin, and hopefully some new hatchlings, back to the nest come October.
Amanda Lee Myers covers news, adventure and the human experience for USA TODAY. She can be reached at [email protected] and found on X at @AmandaLeeUSAT.