After flying the coop for three days, Sequoia, the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo’s tame bald eagle, has landed.

The 24-year-old bird of prey was enjoying her daily exercise Saturday at Byxbee Park when strong winds from the north suddenly appeared to upset her, said John Aikin, the zoo’s executive director. Instead of returning to her handlers, she flew north and roosted in Menlo Park.

Sequoia moved to the Friendly Acres neighborhood of Redwood City on Monday. As night fell, the famished raptor finally dropped from her perch in a tree to longtime trainer John Flynn’s outstretched arm.

“It’s like having a kid,” a jubilant Aikin said by cellphone from the scene. “You know your kid is probably going to make the right choices, but you still can’t help but worry a little bit.”

Sequoia is no stranger to flights of fancy. She went on the lam eight times during her tenure at the San Francisco Zoo, where she was an “ambassador” for the effort to re-establish bald eagles before joining the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo about six months ago.

“This is not to be unexpected,” said Aikin, who helped train her as the director of avian conservation at the San Francisco Zoo. “It’s not the first time it’s happened. And I don’t think it’s the last.”

Bald eagles are easily spooked and something as innocuous as the color of a person’s coat can set them off, Aikin said. In this case, strong winds and an old injury were the likely culprits.

Sequoia was one of a dozen eaglets that were relocated from British Columbia to Big Sur nearly 25 years ago as part of an effort to re-establish bald eagles in California, Aikin said. But she was soon found at a ranch in Humboldt County suffering from a gunshot wound.

The round destroyed part of one foot and paralyzed her tail, leaving her unable to fend for herself in the wild.

Because of the injury, Sequoia can’t fan her tail and use it as a brake, which comes in handy when flying downwind, Aikin said. So, instead of returning to her handlers Saturday, she panicked and flew upwind.

A radio transmitter attached to Sequoia allowed Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo officials to keep tabs on her, Aikin said. They waited nearby during the day and used a special call as well as food to lure her from her perch.

“We have to wait until she’s motivated enough to come down in a place she isn’t familiar with,” Aikin said a few hours before Sequoia’s return, adding that she’s never been known to hunt on her own.

Sequoia gorged on quail and mouse after flying to Flynn. It was more than double what she usually eats in a day.

Aikin hopes to get Sequoia back into her daily routine as soon as possible. In addition to taking regular flights at Byxbee Park, the raptor anchors several educational programs and special events organized by the zoo. In fact, she is scheduled to perform for zoo members on March 3.

“We don’t want her to think of this experience as a bad thing,” Aikin said. “We want her to put it all behind her.”

Aikin said there’s nothing quite like seeing Sequoia in flight.

“It’s a hassle, but we think that hassle is worth the reward to fly her,” Aikin said about the raptor’s occasional unscheduled departures. “She enjoys it. We enjoy it. The public enjoys it.”

Email Jason Green at jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com; follow him at twitter.com/jgreendailynews.