TERF27a/Bee (tracked since 8/12/2023)

TERF27a is one of two chicks raised by TERF26/Annie and her mate Sam in 2023. He either fell or was pushed from the nest on June 21, 2023, when he was around 8-1/2 weeks old. He was taken to OWL the next morning, where they found him underweight and possibly suffering from a mild case of lead poisoning (and determined he was a male). Before his release he received a USFW band (waiting for the number), a yellow ID band with black characters E7 – and a tracker! He was released back near the nest on August 12, when he was 15-16 weeks old.

There wasn’t a storybook happy reunion – the other eaglet (likely the older one) had fledged on July 5 so may have already left the area, and it looks as if Annie left for her fall break soon after TERF27a was released. Happily OWL has facilities for young eagles to practice flying and feeding themselves, so TERF27a didn’t really need a homecoming with big hugs and a pile of fish (though as humans, we would have liked to have seen that). TERF27a was named Bee by the local monitors.

Please visit our Hancock Wildlife Forum thread for more information about what TERF27a/Bee has been doing since then – and some videos of him!

Here are three pictures of TERF27a during and just after his release; The one with the good view of his tracker was taken by K. McCormick and the other two are by ECeaglevideo; all are used with permission, all rights reserved.

TERF27’s map starts with the tracker going from Hancock Wildlife in Surrey to OWL in Delta where it was put on Bee, after which he was taken to the area near his nest in West Vancouver and released on August 12. .