FAE, a majestic female bald eagle seen by many around the area, died on Wednesday from an unknown cause.
The bird arrived at the Mystic Lakes in 2023 after the death of an earlier female known as MK. Unlike most eagles in this region, FAE had not been banded by researchers. She became known simply as “Female Adult Eagle,” or FAE.
FAE and her male partner KZ quickly won the hearts of observers at the Mystic Lakes. Birders noted that FAE seemed intelligent, savvy and extremely wary of people. In late March 2024, FAE laid her first egg. That season, the pair raised three eaglets. Two died of unknown causes within weeks of leaving the nest. The third, 91C, broke a wing trying to fly back up into the nest but was rehabbed and released.
In 2025, she laid her first egg earlier, around March 8, and ultimately hatched three chicks: 75C (a female), 76C (a female), and 77C (a male, the smallest of the three, as is typical of the species).
Feeding three eaglets is a challenge, but FAE was up to the task. She made sure all of her chicks got plenty of food, taking the fish that KZ brought to the nest, and carefully redistributing it to her three hungry charges. The chicks grew and flourished under her watchful eye.
After about 12 weeks, 77C fledged, or left the nest. Soon the other two followed.
As far was anyone knows, all three are alive and well.
According to Paul M. Roberts, a Medford raptor researcher, “Fledging three chicks a year is well above average, and so was FAE.”
Roberts said he last observed FAE on Tuesday evening in her nest. At dawn on Wednesday morning, he did not see her. When KZ returned late that day, there was a different female in the nest. A birder spotted her lifeless body on the ground Thursday morning. The bird’s body was taken to the Tufts Wildlife Clinic for examination, but it could be weeks before the toxicology report is completed.
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