We do not know the ages of these eagles, other than they are mature adults, and therefore more than 5 years old. Bald eagles molt into their white head and tail feathers around age 5, and beyond this their age cannot be determined.

In the wild, a bald eagle’s life expectancy is around 20 years. The oldest wild-living bald eagle on record lived to be 38! In human care, they can sometimes live for 50 years.

Banding birds with an individually numbered ring on their leg is a common practice in ornithology to mark and study individual birds. Special permits are required to band birds for scientific study. In order to avoid unnecessary disturbance at the nest, banding nestlings is done only when scientifically warranted, and currently there is no specific study examining this group of eagles.

Bald Eagles were once endangered, but were delisted from the federal endangered species list in 2007, due to the success of many conservationists working to restore their habitat, and curb pollutants in the ecosystem. They were removed from the Vermont state endangered species list in 2022. Bald eagles are still protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. Both laws prohibit killing, selling, or otherwise harming eagles, their nests or eggs.

The VINS staff debated whether to name the eagles at all. In the end, we decided to name the pair of mature Bald Eagles in the same way that we name ambassador birds of prey at our Nature Center: after the places where they came from. Since many of our ambassador birds have been found locally, and rehabilitated, they bear place-based names such as "Woodstock," "Quechee," and "Hartland." In situations where a bird comes from the same town as another ambassador bird who already bears that name, we may name the new bird after its county or an important landmark nearby. Because the Bald Eagle nest overlooks Dewey's Pond in Windsor County, we thought "Windsor" (female) and "Dewey" (male) would be appropriate, place-based names. For ambassador birds at the VINS Nature Center, we try to remember that these animals lived full, wild lives before crossing paths with us, and we wish likewise to accord Windsor and Dewey as much freedom as possible from human influence. There is always a danger that by naming wild creatures we endow them with human characteristics, and our focus on education, rehabilitation, and research requires that we steer clear of anthropomorphism, as much as possible.

Windsor and Dewey were named because they are expected to return to this site annually. Whether the eaglet remains in the area is unknown, so the eaglet will not receive an official name. As a research institute, we recognize the eaglet as a wild creature, not a pet, and assigning a name risks obscuring that distinction. We do have a practical need to track individuals produced by this nest over time, so we are using the designation V-2, which indicates this is the second eaglet hatched here. This is a scientific identifier, not a name.