North Park eagles could rebuild after nest tree collapses, game commission says

When an old dead oak holding a bald eagle nest crashed to the ground in North Park last week, a legion of photographers and watchers collectively gasped. The tree supported not just the park’s only eagles’ nest, but the only such nest in any Allegheny County park.

The two bald eagles were able to fly away when the nest went down, according to observers.

Chances are decent that this bald eagle pair or another couple could rebuild the nest in the area, said Sean Murphy, the state ornithologist for the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

The eagles nest, four years old, is viewable from a shelter along Pearce Mill Road near the ice skating rink. In 2019, the shelter was renamed “Eagle’s Nest” to acknowledge the strong public interest in the site. Bald eagles have attempted to breed there for two years, unsuccessfully.

A new eagle couple started frequenting the park this year with the male, known as Mr. Stripe because of a black stripe on his beak, spending the entire summer in the park. Mr. Stripe and his lady friend, Ms. Star, have been adding sticks to the nest regularly in the last month.

“There’s something about that location that the birds are keying on,” Murphy said. “If this is a new pair and they chose that same spot, there are factors driving them to be there.” He suspects the birds might try to renest in the area.

“Hopefully they will find an area where there’s a tree they need for a new nest,” said Howard Kepple, 71, of West Deer, a retired auto mechanic and professional portrait photographer. Kepple’s Facebook page, North Park Bald Eagles, with 10,700-plus followers, is keeping up with daily eagle sightings.

Anywhere from two to five photographers are in the park at the same time, Kepple said, in different places, texting each other on sightings. When an eagle does land and the photographers converge, so do other park visitors.

“When we’re parking along the road looking at an eagle, people drive up with their cellphones and it’s nothing to get 20 to 30 people in one sitting,” Kepple said. “It’s a very big thing in the park.”

Although there’s a chance the current pair could rebuild a new nest in the same area, Murphy admits he doesn’t know what will happen.

A nest scenario could play out different ways, he said. The birds could stay. Or, they could leave and return in December to start rebuilding the nest when their breeding season gets underway. There might not return at all.

While Kepple hopes the birds nest somewhere in the park where the public, including the disabled, can view them, he said, “Let them do their thing, let them be eagles.”

The longer a pair of birds nests in the same area, the greater the site fidelity, Murphy said.

For example, the Hays bald eagles will enter their 10th breeding season next year on the same Pittsburgh hillside above the Monongahela River. They have built four nests to raise young eagles in the location near the border with West Homestead.

Eagles are known for building large nests that can reach several tons. They rebuild nests often, as well as constructing new ones as needed.

Staying in the same place where birds have nested successfully is an evolutionary strategy, Murphy said. The birds know where to find food and know who the nest predators are. “Knowing the local environment is a benefit for survival and raising you,” Murphy said.

Murphy, Kepple and the public won’t know Mr. Star and Ms. Stripe’s plans until breeding efforts start to ramp up in December. Mr. Stripe has been seen in the park most days since the nest fell, said Kepple, who along with the game commission and others will continue to monitor the birds.