Before “Bridgerton,” “Love Is Blind,” and “Tiger King,” there was the bald eagle cam.

D.C. is home to two known nesting pairs of bald eagles: Mr. President and the First Lady, who have lived in a tulip poplar at the National Arboretum for the past seven years, and Liberty and Justice, who moved into a tree above the D.C. Police Academy in Southwest around 2005.

In 2019 and 2020, Liberty and Justice stole Washingtonians’ hearts — and workplace productivity — with their months-long relationship drama. We greedily watched the couple’s ups and downs in grainy detail on the Earth Conservation Corps’ camera feed: Justice’s sudden disappearance from the couple’s nest, Liberty’s struggle to fend off a bevy of suitors and protect her eggs alone, her rebound with a bird named M2, Justice’s shocking return, and the couple’s eventual reconciliation.

Now it’s the other couple’s turn for the spotlight. It’s “Eagle Watch: Season 2,” if you will.

D.C. wildlife experts say a young female bald eagle has pushed the First Lady out of her and Mr. President’s longtime love nest, according to reporting by the Washington Post.

Around five male and female bald eagles casually dropped into the nest over the past few months to scope out the scene. The First Lady bared her talons and chased away the females, said Dan Rauch, D.C.’s wildlife biologist, in an interview with the Post.

But the wiles of one bird proved too much for the First Lady. A female eagle known as V5 has made the nest her new home, the Friends of the National Arboretum reports. (V5 stands for Visitor 5; she was the fifth adult bird to visit the nest this year.) ” It seems the Arboretum will have a new power couple in the canopy this spring,” the Friends wrote on Facebook.

The First Lady was last seen around Feb. 15.

Since then, Mr. President and his hot new dish have been spotted nuzzling one another, sharing food and working on the nest. It’s a true May-December romance: Rauch estimates the female bird is around four years old, while Mr. President is around 11 and 12.

Bald eagles typically mate for life, which makes the breakup all the more heart-wrenching. Mr. President and the First Lady have hatched seven chicks together at the National Arboretum. But the past few years have been marked by struggle: Their last chick died in 2018 from West Nile virus, and they haven’t produced other offspring since.

Bald eagles are among D.C.’s most successful conservation stories. In the mid-20th century, the raptors’ numbers fell so low they were placed on the endangered species list. A series of conservation laws and the federal government’s banning of the pesticide DDT helped the species recover.

When Mr. President and the First Lady moved into their poplar tree in 2014, it marked the first time in almost 70 years that an eagle pair had nested in the arboretum. The birds typically feed on fish from the nearby Anacostia River, as well as the occasional small bird.