A pair of bald eagles survived a fire Wednesday that consumed the grove of trees where they are nesting near Fort Lupton. Now naturalists and biologists are keeping tabs on the nest, hoping their eggs were not damaged by the blaze.
“I’ll keep an eye on the nest to see if they’re successful or not,” said Chris Mettenbrink, Colorado Parks and Wildlife district wildlife manager. “I don’t know how hot it got under the nest and whether the eggs are impacted or not.”
Bald eagles are protected by federal and state laws, so if the eggs don’t hatch, charges could be filed.
Problems started when heavy winds pushed a controlled burn in the Speer Ditch No. 1 out of control. The cottonwood tree where the bald eagles nest is 20 feet to 30 feet tall, and burned three-quarters of the way up.
Susan Badding, wife of the farm property owner where the nest is, said the eagles have nested in that tree for about two years.
“It infuriated me,” she said of the fire. “We warned them that eagles were nesting there, and to be careful going through.”
Mettenbrink said the out-of-control burn was “pretty much an accident. It’s very dry out here. There’s been no moisture here since the beginning of February, and there are fires all over the place now.”
Bald eagle eggs hatch in about 35 days, so chicks could emerge anytime from late March to April, said Cindi Kelly, the Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory’s Bald Eagle Watch project coordinator.
Experts hold out hope for the Fort Lupton pair.
“As soon as the fire was out, the firemen were putting down foam, the birds were back in the nest,” Mettenbrink said. “They are pretty determined to stick with it.”
That’s a good indication that the eggs were unharmed, Kelly said.
In 1974, there was one pair of breeding bald eagles in Colorado, but after the bird was listed as endangered in 1976, they began coming back. Today, there are 90 breeding pairs in the state.
Colleen O’Connor: 303-954-1083 or coconnor@denverpost.com
