Fans of Auburn football, all 87,000 of them, will be saying "happy birthday" in addition to "War Eagle" to a high-flying member of the Auburn family Saturday.
Tiger, Auburn's sixth War Eagle, is 30 years old, and this weekend is a time to remember why she is so special.
"We flew the bird the first time just from the goalpost to the center of the field," said Roy Crowe, eagle consultant and education specialist for the Southeastern Raptor Center. "And the crowd just went crazy."
Watching the eagle circle Jordan-Hare Stadium is one of the most highly anticipated parts of every home football game.
Tiger is the golden eagle that started the famous pregame ritual 10 years ago.
"It was actually the former director Joe Shelnutt's idea," Crowe said. "He had seen my personal birds fly and wanted to know if I could train the eagles to do that."
Crowe began training Tiger to do, essentially, what she was born to do.
"We're just modifying the behavior that they have in the wild," Crowe said. "They circle around looking for food, and when they see it, they swoop down on it.
"So we get them to circle around the stadium looking for food on the lure that we have, and when they see it, they swoop down and grab it. So we're just using operant classical conditioning to change the bird's behavior."
The feat can be reduced to basic mechanics, but there's something magical about the eagle's flight that cannot be ignored.
"I think that seeing an eagle do what it was designed to do, which is soar over an open area, stirs a lot of emotions in people," said Marianne Hudson, raptor specialist at the Southeastern Raptor Center.
Tiger's first flight was in 2000, but eventually it was time for her to pass the gauntlet on to Nova and Spirit, the eagles that now take part in the pregame tradition.
"Her last flight was at the Georgia game in 2006, and that was the day she was retired," Hudson said.
Tiger still has a busy life after her retirement.
"The choice was made to retire her before she was too old to do it," Hudson said, "so she was retired in time to still enjoy some of her retirement."
Retirement for this golden eagle includes being involved in educational presentations and serving as a wildlife ambassador.
Tiger will be honored during halftime of the Nov. 6 Homecoming game.
A big part of the commemoration will be the dedication of a pencil sketch of Tiger by Stephen Malkoff, a nationally known pencil artist.
"When she flies, everything else takes second stage," Malkoff said. "It doesn't matter what colors you have on. When that eagle flies, there's just something very, very special about it."
Tiger started a tradition that has awed fans of every team, making the eagle flight one of the most cherished traditions in college football.
"There are a lot of people who are attached to that bird," Crowe said. "The bird lived here on campus for so many years, and there's a whole generation of people who remember Tiger."
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