It’s hard to overstate what a tumultuous year 2019 was for Liberty and Justice, the District’s most beloved bald eagle parents:

First, there was Justice’s sudden disappearance from the pair’s nest above the police academy in Southwest, where they’d successfully raised a bevy of bald eaglets for 14 years. Liberty was left alone, struggling to fend off advances from suitors and incubate two vulnerable eggs all on her own.

Then there was the patriarch’s sudden, shocking return weeks later, after Liberty had already begun moving on with a fine gentleman by the name of M2.

Finally, there was a reconciliation—a cathartic ending, to be sure, but one that came far too late for their eggs, which had long since died after being left uncovered for long stretches in the cold.

Now, just as the couple’s legion of dedicated fans was preparing for a hopefully uneventful nesting season this February, there’s a new snag: no one is quite sure where the eagle parents are.

Bald eagles are among D.C.’s most successful conservation stories, and one that has drawn fans from all over the region who dedicate their time and resources to watching the birds. In the mid-20th century, the once-abundant raptor’s numbers plummeted so low they were placed on the endangered species list. In D.C., an organization called the Earth Conservation Corps has been deeply involved in eagle conservation efforts since the 1990s, when they began releasing eagles from other states into the wild in the District. Since then, the ECC and many volunteer citizen scientists have kept tabs on the area’s eagle population.

While numerous eagles have been spotted in the city, there are just known two nesting pairs: Mr. President and the First Lady, who have made their home at the National Arboretum for at least four years, and Liberty and Justice, who have been nesting in a tree above the D.C. Police Academy since at least 2005.

But this year, it’s been hard to actually locate the pair.

The first problem in finding Liberty and Justice is that the ECC camera feed, which has been trained on their nest for several years, is no longer working (though the organization is currently working on a fix). Without the close-up view, it’s hard to tell whether any of the eagles seen around the nest are the beloved couple.

But there are reasons to believe that Liberty and Justice aren’t nesting in their regular tree at all.

For one thing, area citizen scientists have been physically observing the nest and the skies above the academy from the ground, and—while the odd eagle or two drops by to eat a fish in peace—there is no nesting pair currently incubating eggs there. It’s now well past the time of year when Liberty usually lays her eggs; last year, the matriarch laid her first egg on February 12, right on schedule.

That doesn’t quite mean it’s time to lose all hope, says ECC founder Bob Nixon. While it’s late for the pair to be nesting, Liberty could lay an egg all the way up to March.

But there’s yet another complication. Recently, eagle-eyed bird watchers have spotted a brand new nest in the D.C. area, in Oxon Cove, on National Park Service land in Prince George’s County. That area has been a popular hunting ground for Liberty, Justice, and the eaglets they reared together. Many people on the Anacostia Raptor Watch Facebook page—full of eagle watchers who rather obsessively follow Liberty and Justice’s lives—believe the eagle parents have flown the coop, so to speak, and created a new nest for themselves in Oxon Cove.

It’s a perfectly reasonable theory, per Nixon: “We do know that there seem to be various factors that would cause birds to build a new nest,” he says. “If they have not had a successful mating season, they might then say ‘Well, that didn’t work, let’s move.’ And that was the case last year. Last year, no young bald eagles were born in D.C. for the first time since probably 1999.”

It’s also possible that something else happened. After last year’s tumultuous season, it’s not certain that Lady Liberty chose, in the end, to remain with Justice. Though the pair were spotted on camera mating and appeared to be hunting and roosting together upon the patriarch’s return, hearts don’t always forgive so easily. It’s possible that Liberty couldn’t quite get over the betrayal of his mysterious disappearance, or perhaps she was simply wooed back by M2, who was proving quite a successful rebound before Justice reentered the picture. The new nest at Oxon Cove might have been built by Liberty and a totally different male, Nixon says.

Either way, he believes Liberty is still in the area.

“I believe Liberty is happy in the neighborhood somewhere. I’m not sure about the status of who she has paired up with or where they will decide to nest,” Nixon says. “I’m hoping to have a successful nesting season at one of these two nests, and it well could be two pairs.”

Because Liberty and Justice also raised so many young in Oxon Cove, it’s also possible that one or more of the birds at that nest are their offspring, says Nixon.

The problem is there’s no real way to know for sure. Even the most seasoned experts on Liberty and Justice can’t identify the birds from the ground—they need the kind of up-close vantage point provided by the cameras.

So far, the only thing that’s clear is that there are eagles in the area, and there are two nests where the couple could conceivably be residing, neither of which is currently being actively used for nesting. As February becomes March, it will become clearer whether D.C. is destined for another season without hatchlings from Liberty. (Mr. President and the First Lady have not laid any eggs yet this year, though they have been consistently captured on camera preparing their nest for eaglets).

But even if Liberty and Justice have broken up or flown the coop, Nixon stresses that this is nothing to be brokenhearted about. The pair happily raised more than 20 eaglets at their police academy nest, and it’s perfectly natural for couples to build new nests, or even to find new partners (bald eagles mate for life, barring death or the kind of scarring abandonment experience Liberty experienced last year). What’s more, it’s a sign of the success of conservation efforts for eagles to feel at ease finding new locations to nest.

“It’s natural, if they’ve moved on,” Nixon says. “Mother Nature is at work here, and we just don’t know the answer. Maybe after a decade of success at this one nest, they’ve moved down to this new tree.”

Previously:
Liberty The Eagle Spends Valentine’s Day Fending Off Interloper
In The Wake Of Abandonment, Liberty The Eagle Leaves Her Eggs (And Possibly Her Nest)
In Shocking Twist, Justice The Eagle Returns To His Nest
It’s Official: Bald Eagles Liberty And Justice Are Back Together
“Some Of These Nests Are Like A Soap Opera:” Welcome To The World Of D.C. Eagle Obsessives