They’re back!

Wausau’s nesting pair of urban eagles has returned for yet another crack at parenthood.

Home to them is a love-seat-sized nest about 50 feet off the ground in a large pine tree across the street from Mino’s Cucina Italiana restaurant. The tree stands just 20 feet from Jackie and Jerry Soucek’s duplex at 923 Golf Club Road.

The birds can be viewed from Mino’s parking lot. That is, unless they’re out feeding or sitting on an egg deep inside the nest.

“I’m not seeing them now,” said Jackie Soucek, 72, as she walked about her backyard earlier this week. “Oh they’re beautiful, though. They really are beautiful.”

The eagles, first spotted in 2001, built their nest within a short flight of the Wisconsin River. It’s rare, however for eagles to nest in an urban setting.

It’s so rare, in fat, that folks in Alaska are doing research on a pair of eagles recently sited making a nest in the capital city of Juneau, where eagles are prevalent, said Marge Gibson, executive director of the Antigo-based nonprofit Raptor Education Group International.

“If they’re excited and jumping up and down and writing research reports on it, what does that say for Wausau,” she said. “I mean wow. … It’s an honor for (the eagles) to be there in Wausau.”

Presenting Talons

The raptors typically mate in the same nest year after year with the same partner. Most nesting eagles, though, are found in remote sites near water, where the fishing is good.

Hunting demands that their health be perfect.

Even though they mate for life, the male eagle – the smaller one – must prove he’s healthy before the female will agree to the match.

“Bald eagle courtship is absolutely beautiful,” Gibson said, before describing their undulating dance in the sky.

As they soar above the treetops, one eagle will turn upside down and then the two will join talons.

“The male will basically present his talons to her,” Gibson said. “It’s sort of like a guy flexing his muscles, saying, “I can support you and the kids.”

Raising a Family

The deed takes place on a tree branch where the eagles get affectionate and vocal. It doesn’t las long, Gibson said.

“It’s either happened already or it’s happening soon,” she said.

If successful, the female will lay one to three eggs, which take about five weeks to hatch. During incubation, the female sits on the eggs for all but about two hours a day. The male takes over typically during the afternoon while the female feeds and exercises her muscles, Gibson said.

After the eaglets hatch, mom will remain in the nest for the first couple of weeks.

“You should start seeing little heads at about three weeks, little gray heads and they they turn white,” Gibson said. “You’ll probably hear them before you’ll see them, because they’re very squawky.”

Two weeks after they’re hatched, dad begins to alternate sittings with mom. Soon the eaglets will be strong enough to attempt their first flight. By summer they will be almost as big as their parents – “they virtually explode,” Gibson said.

A Hard-Knock Life

City life hasn’t been easy for the eagles.

Inexperience likely led them to choose the urban nest in the first place, Gibson said.

Their first version of the nest was rickety, which allowed an eaglet to fall out before it had matured. The eaglet was nursed to maturity at the Raptor Education Group and eventually released into the wild.

Rather than eat fresh fish, these eagles likely eat rodents, which would help their early arrival this year, Gibson said. “Maybe that’s one of the reasons they don’t mind living there.” Two years ago the eagles had three eaglets, which is rare. When one of the eaglets made his way out onto a branch and refused to fly, the Wausau Fire Department extended its ladder to the tree, and Gibson coaxed the eaglet out of the tree.

Last year, the couple lost its eaglets, likely to a bout of cold weather , Gibson said.

The eagles let the neighborhood early, which left a void in residents’ lives.

“So you got a couple of city kids,” Gibson said to the eagles. “It’s fun. Yeah, really weird, but fun.”

“I’d like to get a psychological profile on these birds. What were they thinking?”