Murphy the bald eagle waited day after day in his modest, yet carefully built nest for his one egg to hatch, but his keepers did not have the heart to break the news to him: The 31-year-old flightless bachelor was sitting on a rock.
A usually mild-tempered bird, Murphy gently rotated his rock, less shaped like an egg than a small meteorite, as though to incubate it. He lay in the one spot all day, rising to squawk and charge at the other birds that dared to come near his nest at the World Bird Sanctuary in Valley Park, Mo.
A sign on the eagles’ enclosure attempted to abate visitors’ concern, noting that Murphy was “not hurt, sick, or otherwise in distress.” The sanctuary, acknowledging the bird’s behaviors, wished him the best of luck.
Perhaps it was fate, then, when an orphaned eaglet, just a week or two old, was brought into the sanctuary this month, having survived a fall from a tree during a storm in Ste. Genevieve, Mo., about 60 miles southeast. In a way, Murphy was the “obvious choice” for a foster parent, Dawn Griffard, the chief executive of the sanctuary, said in a phone interview.
Karmas_burning on April 19th, 2023 at 23:53 UTC »
I've been following this story since Murphy built a nest and took charge of the rock. I donate to World Bird Sanctuary. They are an amazing organization.
rebootyourbrainstem on April 19th, 2023 at 22:22 UTC »
The funny thing is, brooding on that rock did lead to him getting a baby (with some human intervention in between). MF manifested himself a kid.
thenewyorktimes on April 19th, 2023 at 19:50 UTC »
Murphy, a bald eagle at a bird sanctuary in Missouri, waited day after day in his modest, yet carefully built nest for his one egg to hatch, but his keepers did not have the heart to break the news to him: The 31-year-old flightless bachelor was sitting on a rock.
Then when an orphaned eaglet needed a dad this month, Murphy was ready to step up.
Murphy soon began responding to the chick’s peeps, and protecting it. And when, as a test, the keepers placed two plates of food in front of the birds — one containing food cut into pieces that the chick could eat by itself, and another with a whole fish that only Murphy could handle — the older bird tore up the fish and fed it to the eaglet, said Dawn Griffard, the chief executive of the World Bird Sanctuary in Valley Park. “You can definitely see the imprinting happening, which is exactly what we wanted,” she said.
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