Male Bald Eagle Gets His Chance to Foster Parent

The staff at the Wild Bird Sanctuary in St. Louis noticed that a 31-year-old bald eagle named Murphy was acting a bit peculiar. Murphy had built a rudimentary nest on the ground and was seen incubating a rock. In the wild, mated eagle pairs take turns incubating eggs, freeing the other to hunt food. But Murphy has no mate. You can't force these things, even in a sanctuary.

You had to feel for Murphy, knowing that the rock wasn't going to hatch. But hope springs eternal, and Murphy's desire for a chick turned out to be prescient. Unbeknownst to Murphy, his story had gone viral. Back at the sanctuary, he was becoming annoyingly protective of his nest, and was moved to a private enclosure for the sake of the other eagles. Meanwhile, a bald eagle nest got blown down from its tree in another part of Missouri, and the surviving chick (named 23-126) came into the sanctuary's care. The two-week-old chick needed a parent. Would Murphy be up for the job? He certainly is!

Wild Bird Sanctuary catches us up on the story up to that point in this Facebook post. An update today shows Murphy showing the chick how to eat.

Father and son are getting along really well. Good Egg memorialized the saga in a sweet cartoon.

It just goes to show that if you believe hard enough, you can make a rock hatch. You can stay in touch with Murphy and his chick by following the story at Facebook or Twitter. -via Boing Boing​

(Top image credit: Wild Bird Sanctuary)