Nesting bald eagles create ‘quite a stir’ on high school campus

A pair of bald eagles is calling Long Island their new home, nesting at a high school campus for nearly a month.

The majestic birds, one male and one female, have shacked up high in a tree at Great Neck South School in Nassau, Newsday reported.

Their unexpected appearance has created “quite a stir,” the school district’s superintendent for business John Powell told Newsday.

“One of the eagles is perched on a branch right now, so everyone in our department is looking out the window right now,” he told the paper on Thursday.

Students and staff are keeping a respectful distance from the birds, which require a buffer zone of 330 feet during nesting season from late January to late July, according to the US Fish & Wildlife Service.

“We had to send out a directive that nobody is to get near the site and to do as little as possible to disturb their habitat,” Powell said.

The agency estimates that there are at least 9,789 nesting pairs of bald eagles in the contiguous US.

The location is an optimal spot for the eagles — the school is across the street from the fish-filled Lake Success — and they could become annual visitors to Great Neck.

“If this is the first year they’ve spent time building it and if they are successful here, very likely they’ll keep coming back year after year,” said Eileen Hanson, the associate director of the National Eagle Center.

Bald eagle sightings in New York City and Long Island are rare, but they’ve been known to nest in upstate New York.