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Virginia Beach Animal Control rescues entangled bald eagles

Posted at 4:40 PM, Nov 28, 2018
and last updated 2018-11-28 16:56:11-05

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - It was a mating ritual gone wrong for a pair of bald eagles in Virginia Beach.

Luckily, officers from animal control were able to help.

The entangled bald eagles

“They just were laying there,” Officer Morgan Hayes said. “I think they were a little stressed at the time.”

Officers found the two bald eagles, a male and female, latched together on the ground Tuesday.

“Usually, the bald eagle calls I have gotten called out on have been gone by the time I get there,” Officer Hayes said.

But the pair’s mishap was a fascinating sight for Hayes.

“They’re very magnificent creatures, and so to be so close to something like that and experience it is pretty cool,” she told News 3.

This happened in the Alanton neighborhood.

Someone found the two birds entangled in their yard.

“…almost like they were fighting and couldn’t break apart,” the officer described.

Hayes said the bald eagles were stuck for about 40 minutes before finally flying away.

She said this, occasionally, happens during mating season.

“When the eagles court one another, they usually mate for life. So what they do during their courtship,  they will fly up high in the air and they will wrap their talons together and they will do like a tumbling spiral down, toward the ground. They usually break off before they come in contact with the ground," Hayes explained to News 3’s Brian Hill.

Once they finally broke apart, they flew to safety.

Hayes said they perched on tress and “looked like they were okay.”