Mother Nature can be a cruel mistress.

Nothing drives home the adage more than the sudden collapse of an adult bald eagle couple’s nest from a high tree in the Angeles National Forest that sent their baby chick plummeting to its death on Friday, March 30.

For dozens of bird watchers, hikers, nature lovers and neighbors who routinely watched the magnificent pair raise their babies in the mountain nest for more than two years, the death of the eaglet and the loss of the bald eagles’ home left them heartbroken.

“We are pretty sure it didn’t make it. It is so sad,” said Joann Sanderson, north Azusa resident and regulator visitor to the nest, located on a lone tree about 100 yards from Highway 39 behind San Gabriel Dam. Millions of motorists who drove the twisting highway from the Valley floor into the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument would pass by the tree unaware of the first nesting pair of bald eagles in the Angeles and in mainland Los Angeles County.

Attractive couple

When the story was reported by this newspaper in the spring of 2016, the curious scampered up the mountain to catch a glimpse. The pair of eagles attracted professional nature photographers whose automatic shutters would whirl whenever the mother bird would make a move toward the chicks. By no accident, the bald eagle couple choose a tree far enough away from the road to remain safe from harm, yet close enough to food sources — fish in the reservoir and small mammals scurrying through the steep, chaparral-covered slopes.

At the end of the season, the pair would cajole the eaglet out of the nest. Many witnessed the young one’s awkward flapping of its wings and bruising descents. But after multiple tries, the eaglet would fly.

New life flourished, paving the path for future offspring. Each winter, the adult pair would return and the female would lay new eggs in the nest. Both would be seen hurriedly bringing sticks and mud up to the nest, enlarging the dwelling considerably.

“It was absolutely huge,” Sanderson said. “They just kept adding to it.”

As late as Thursday evening, the pair guarded the nest as the 6-week-old fledgling squirmed about, drying its downy feathers with wing flaps. By July, most expected the baby bird to gain strength and fly away like previous sisters and brothers had done in 2016 and 2017.

But for some reason, this year disaster struck.

On Friday, Sanderson returned with her husband Dennis to the nest located a few miles from their home in the Angeles.

The nest had flipped upside-down. The baby chick was gone. Two worried eagle parents watched from the upper branches, choosing not to dive down into the gully — a signal there was no hope for a recovery.

There’s a strong probability the chick died or may have been eaten by coyotes, but there will be no recovery effort because the topography is too dangerous, said Nathan Sill, forest biologist. As to the future of the adult pair?

“They most likely will rebuild a nest but probably not until this coming winter, during courtship period,” he said.

“Just nature”

What caused the nest to collapse? Was it the recent heavy rains? Or a tree weakened by disease?

The U.S. Forest Services sent recreation rangers to the scene Friday afternoon. They confirmed what the Sandersons and other bird watchers had observed.

“The nest collapsed into the tree. There is just sticks now,” said Phillip Desenze, Angeles forest spokesman. “That’s Mother Nature. That’s the way she goes.”

Desenze said there was no evidence the nest was intentionally destroyed. The body of the baby chick had not yet been discovered as of Tuesday afternoon. There are conflicting reports of whether the adult bald eagles are still in the area or have left to stake out a spot for a new nest.

Steve Shinn, nature photographer from Long Beach and USFS volunteer ranger, had chronicled the famous pair since mid-2016. A photograph of his showing the happy couple touching beaks while perched on a limb near the nest welcomes passengers to LAX on two large posters.

Ironically, Shinn and others in the USFS and the county Department of Public Works had pursued mounting an Angeles National Forest eagle cam, similar to the one that sends live feed of a bald eagle nest in Big Bear on the internet. But steep terrain and jurisdictional issues had stalled the effort. Now, it is moot.

“You get attached to them for a while but I didn’t name them like other people,” he said. “That is just nature.”