Love is literally in the air. The female bald eagle of Aspen Glen, between Carbondale and Glenwood Springs, has found a new mate. “There are courtship displays. You know, we see them flying together in the sky and tumbling around,” said Delia Malone, vice chair of Roaring Fork Audubon. She has been monitoring the bald eagles in the Aspen Glen Bald Eagle Buffer Zone for decades.
Last summer, the female eagle’s longtime mate was hit by a car on Highway 82 and died from his injuries. Malone told KDNK that the female spurned suitors for a while. “In my opinion, she was mourning her loss. They’d been together for years. They had family together. And over months she would just wait in her roost tree where they used to be together. She he would just… wait, hoping for his return,” she said. “And I guess finally she realized he was never coming back.”
The new mate is a younger bird. Maybe half the female’s age, says Malone. “And so this young guy showed up. You know, she didn’t tolerate him at first. She would shoo him away. But he kept coming back just like young guys do. She finally took him on and they have been inseparable ever since.”
The eagles are fixing up the nest in the roosting tree so maybe eaglets are in the future.
