Man’s helping hands can sometimes reach higher than a pair of
eagle’s wings.

The hands, in this case, belonged to Jim Rickard of Johnsonburg
who used his professional pole-climbing skills to return a juvenile
eagle to its nest blown down in a spring windstorm.

This past spring in about May, Rickard, a long-time Allegheny
Power lineman, had to perform a timed, delicate maneuver to get the
eagle back to its wary parents and still keep his cool about 90
feet above the ground.

“It was a good size … for being born somewhere around the end of
April,” Rickard said, describing the “baby” bird with a six-foot
wingspan and weighing about 10 pounds.

Richard Bodenhorn of Ridgway, wildlife conservation officer for
the Pennsylvania Game Commission, said the eaglet was about a week
too young and its wings were not strong enough to allow it to
fly.

And so, the Game Commission had to find a way to get the bird
back up into the tree and to its parents, who will raise it for the
next two to three years.

The Game Commission has been monitoring the eagle’s nest in
Millstone Township along River Road in Elk County, near Belltown.
One eaglet was left in the tree; while, another was on the ground
following the storm this past spring. They were about a week from
fledging – when the wing muscles and feathers are developed enough
for flight.

Deputy Warden Ron Beeler, Rickard’s son-in-law, helped capture
the eaglet on the ground and took it to the Tamarack Wildlife
Rehabilitation and Education Center in Saegertown for about a week
to make sure it was physically OK.

While there, the eaglet was tested and flew 20 feet to roost in
a flight building.

While the Game Commission was eager to return the bird to its
natural habitat, it also had to be careful not to jeopardize the
other eaglet by scaring the adult eagles caring for it. Otherwise,
it could have ended up on the ground, too.

“Timing was very, very important for making it a success,”
Bodenhorn said. “We put a lot of thought prior to implementation.
We timed it intentionally. The other eaglet fledged the same
morning that we put this bird back up in the tree.”

When it was time for the bird to be returned to the nest,
Rickard volunteered for the job.

“It really wasn’t about us,” Rickard said. “Really, the whole
thing … was about the American eagle. They were almost lost at one
time. They’ve come a long way in the last 30 years.”

The grounded eaglet was transported in a cardboard box from the
rehabilitation center to Belltown. A large towel was draped over
its head to calm it down, and it was then placed into a very large
plastic container.

“People there from around Belltown watched as they moved the
eaglet from the cardboard box to the plastic container,” Rickard
said. “Most of them hadn’t been that close to an eagle before.
Seeing one on TV is definitely not the same as being right there.
It was all new to us.”

Rickard was asked not to touch the eaglet to keep it free of
human scent.

Bodenhorn also gave Rickard a special warning before he scaled
the tree – the same one from which the nest fell.

“He did tell me when I handle the bird up in the tree to not let
it get a hold of you with its talons because it has such a grip
that when it latched onto your arm it would actually penetrate the
skin and go in,” Rickard said. “He said then you’d have a real hard
time trying to get that bird to let go of you.”

A tree is trickier to climb than a telephone pole, especially
this particular one. “It was so large and so huge we couldn’t even
wrap (two of the men’s) arms around the tree and touch,” Rickard
said.

And he had to keep re-belting as he moved up the tree because of
the many limbs.

His gaff, a climbing hook protruding from a harness, is in the
wood as soon as it hits a utility pole. But with a tree, there’s a
chance it would peel away from the bark and he’d fall.

Once Rickard reached the limb where the nest used to be, the
real work began.

He had tied a 100-foot to 150-foot long rope on his belt. When
he secured himself in the tree, he lowered the rope to the ground,
where the eaglet was waiting in the plastic container.

The ground crew tied the rope on the container, and Rickard
hoisted away.

Fortunately, he was used to pulling heavy items such as
crossarms up telephone poles and so the 10-pound bird was no
problem. But a problem came once the bird was up the tree.

“I had to wait 15 minutes for the bird to calm down. It wanted
to come up out of the container when I took the lid (partially)
off. It hadn’t latched onto a limb or somewhere to perch so it
would have just fallen down to the ground again.”

With the lid cracked, he talked to the juvenile bird to calm it
down.

He took the lid completely off and held the container between
his knees. He slowly worked the container into an upright position,
turning it until the bird righted itself inside the container with
its feet getting a firm grip onto the limb.

At least 10 minutes went by before it latched onto the limb, he
said.

“When I got the eaglet out, it was an amazing view from that
height. You could see up and down the Clarion River.”

It was then he got the chance to see the six-foot wingspan of
the eaglet close up.

“I stood there for about a minute or two as it spread its wings
to air them out. I really thought that that was something. I can
see why the eagle is representative of the United States. I could
see … how majestic of a bird they really are.

“I didn’t take my eyes off it,” for about three or four minutes,
Rickard said, not wanting to scare it and not sure what it was
going to do. He then moved about 8 or 10 feet down the tree.

One of the eaglet’s parents landed on the limb right beside it
and was there a minute or two before taking off down the hillside
through the air.

“And two seconds later, the eaglet was right behind it,” Rickard
said. “I didn’t hear it until it landed on the limb. Everything was
really calm about the whole thing. I know it knew that I was there
with its eyesight. There’s nothing they can’t see.”

When the group returned to their vehicles, they could see both
parent eagles and juvenile eagles out on the riverbank. He said
they spent about a half-hour flying up and down the river, hunting
for something to eat.

“When we pulled away from that and drove back to Ridgway,
everybody felt great,” Rickard said.

As of just a few weeks ago, he had a report they were all still
together.

Would Rickard volunteer again for such a task? Sure, he said. “I
learned a lot. As my daughter has told me, it was a
once-in-a-lifetime thing.”