Bald eagle snatches baby red-tailed hawk — and raises it like her own in California
A bald eagle mom carried a baby red-tailed hawk in her talons back to her nest in Northern California, where her hungry eaglet was waiting.
Photographer Doug Gillard suspected the hawk was going to be a meal for the eaglet. Instead, for the next month, he watched as the bald eagle tended to the hawk as if it was its own at a nest in Santa Clara County.
Gillard documented the peculiar family dynamic and posted photos and videos to a bird watching group on Facebook called Nor Cal Birding. Hundreds of people followed along — waiting to see if the hawk would survive the eagle’s nest.
The baby red-tailed hawk, now named Tuffy, was first captured on camera and shared with the group May 20. The exact location of the nest has not been shared to protect the birds.
“I couldn’t believe what mom brought back to junior for lunch. Not sure, but I think it was a young, alive redtailed hawk. She’s teaching Jr. how to kill and then eat?” Gillard wrote in a Facebook post to the group.
When Gillard visited the nest a week later, he said he was surprised to see a “little white head” in the nest that was the size of a “cotton ball,” he told McClatchy News by phone on June 21.
The bald eagle had not made the baby red-tailed hawk a snack — it had been raising it alongside the eaglet.
A few days later, a second baby hawk appeared in the nest.
“Turns out there are now TWO kidnapped baby red-tailed hawks being raised by a bald eagle,” Gillard wrote in a post.
The second baby hawk did not survive more than a few days in the nest.
The bald eagle mom continued to tend to the two birds until Lola, the eaglet, fledged from the nest on June 12, Gillard said. Tuffy then fledged five days later.
“He was only out of the nest a short time and stayed around the base of the tree. He was able to make it back up to the nest! An amazing accomplishment under the circumstances!” Gillard said in a Facebook post.
Although Lola and Tuffy have fledged, they are still hanging around the nest. The bald eagle mom will likely herd its child out of the area sometime in August, Gillard said.
As for Tuffy, Gillard said he wonders how the hawk will survive on its own when red-tailed hawks and eagles are typically “enemies.”
“I worry about Tuffy. I mean, does he think he’s an eagle?” Gillard said.
Regardless, “the story isn’t completely over yet.”
This story was originally published June 19, 2023 at 11:03 AM with the headline "Bald eagle snatches baby red-tailed hawk — and raises it like her own in California."
