Bald Eagles and Red-tailed Hawks can be anything but friendly neighbors. Around active nests and dependent young, encounters between the two species can include persistent harassment, chasing, and aerial attacks. That makes what we observed at our Stearns Bald Eagle territory between August 11 and August 18, 2026, particularly interesting.
The Stearns nesting bald eagles have been repeatedly impacted by human activity and development. This appears to be occurring again in the summer of 2020, as a result of loud construction activity in close proximity to one of their most common use areas. In addition, the City and County of Broomfield plans to allow oil and gas remediation work near this site during September, 2020, a time when the Stearns eagles begin nest-building.
In the initial two weeks post-fledge, the adult and juvenile eagles focused most of their activity in an ~130-acre area of the hay fields north and northeast of their nest. The adults were busy tending to the two active juveniles in what we call the early “herding cats” phase of the post-fledge dependence period (PFD).
FRNBES filed two federal lawsuits versus U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regarding permitted allowances for a construction company to build a large apartment complex in close proximity to an active Bald Eagle nest (the Stearns nest in Broomfield, Colorado).
There are two very different ways in which an eagle nest is lost due human causation.