If you were nursing a lonely heart on Valentine’s Day, know that at least one D.C. resident probably had a worse day than you did.

Liberty the bald eagle deserves the collective sympathy of the District of Columbia for all her recent woes in love, which were so poorly timed as to coincide with both Valentine’s Day and bald eagle mating season.

Her partner of 14-years, a stately-looking bird named Justice, has suddenly disappeared from their shared nest above the police academy in Southwest. This would be a sad turn of events for anybody, but it’s particularly unfortunate for Liberty, who just laid an egg on Tuesday and thus finds herself in a very vulnerable state. Justice is supposed to be completing his fatherly duties, bringing fish to the nest for her to eat and giving her an occasional break from incubating.

Instead, Liberty is forced to protect her egg by herself, all while trying to fend off the attentions of an interloper: a scraggly, ruffled-looking male eagle who has been christened Aaron Burrd.

Aaron Burrd first showed up to the nest shortly after Justice disappeared over the weekend, says Tommy Lawrence, managing director of Earth Conservation Corps, the group that observes the area’s bald eagles via live camera feed. He had claw marks on his talons, indicative of a fight—possibly one with Justice.

“[Justice] got too comfortable,” says Lawrence. “He was an older, lazy father. He got beat out by a younger male.”

Now, Justice may be off somewhere tending to his wounds and shoring up his strength for a return battle.  “We hope he’s off somewhere training so he can come back and fight [Aaron Burrd] off,” Lawrence says. “If he does come back, he would have Liberty who would back him up.”

Here’s a bit of necessary backstory: Justice and Liberty have been together since at least 2005, when the ECC first spotted their nest and started monitoring them. By all accounts, they have been a stable and happy eagle couple, successfully raising lots of chicks together. This year appeared to be no different—ECC cameras caught the birds mating on Saturday, and about 70 hours later, Liberty laid an egg right on schedule.

Except, by that point, her partner had already disappeared, and the interloper had made his move.

Burrd has been spotted repeatedly trying to woo Liberty throughout the week, and twice he has succeeded in getting her to mate (Liberty has been “weighing her options” with Justice gone, Lawrence says). But the interloper’s chances seemed to take a turn for the worse on Valentine’s night, when Aaron Burrd tried to stop  by again. “He keeps doing this thing every night. He’s really odd where he comes to the nest in the middle of the night, which is…not usual,” Lawrence says. Normally, bald eagles don’t fly at night because they’re more vulnerable to predators.

Undeterred by such concerns, Burrd dropped in on Liberty (literally) at around midnight, trying every which way to mate with her. “He failed miserably,” Lawrence says. (Video evidence of the encounter, in which Aaron Burrd can be seen trying to mount an indifferent Liberty’s head, can be found here).

The whole situation is likely an annoyance for Liberty, but also a possible danger to her egg with Justice. Male bald eagles generally don’t take kindly to eggs that aren’t their own, and Aaron Burrd could decide to destroy it. Aaron Burrd has had plenty of opportunity, but hasn’t yet killed the egg, inspiring hope that he may leave it alone to hatch.

But when the chick is born, there will be new danger that Aaron Burrd could try to kill the fledgling. Plus, he has mated with Liberty, meaning that she could lay an egg belonging to him in the next couple of weeks. Having two eggs of such different ages in a nest does not bode well: when they’re hatched, the larger chick could peck its sibling to death, Lawrence says.

In other words, things would be much easier for this couple if Justice would just show up and take his challenger on for a second round.

Search parties, made up of the District’s committed eagle-lovers, have had their eyes to the sky looking for Justice. There have been some clues: some watchers reported seeing a solo eagle hanging out at the St. Elizabeths campus, about a half mile away from Liberty and Justice’s nest. Lawrence says they’re trying to get a better look and figure out if the bird is indeed Justice.

Also, just before 10 a.m. on Friday, two bald eagles were spotted flying in circles above the nest while Aaron Burrd sat in it alone. It’s not clear whether either of those eagles was Justice, either.

If he does not come back, Liberty will have some choices to make. She may end up finding Aaron Burrd an unsuitable partner for her tastes, in which case, Lawrence says, “she will go back into the dating market next season, when the eaglets are out of her nest.”