It’s bald eagle fledging season! Birdwatchers everywhere are glued to their binoculars and webcams, watching as what started as insular family dramas turn into coming-of-age sagas.
But this season’s most dramatic plotline belongs to a seaside nest in Sidney, British Columbia.
A pair of bald eagles there are raising up a red-tailed hawk—normally a rival species—alongside their own three chicks, the Vancouver Sun reports.A heartfelt attempt to help out some neighbors? Probably not. The eagles likely kidnapped the baby hawk, intending to feed it to their own children, raptor specialist David Bird told the Sun. When it survived the trip and started peeping, they just started feeding it instead. (This theory is supported by retroactive photo evidence, which indicates that there were once at least two hawk chicks in the nest.)
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