How in the world is this even possible?
There have been plenty of “big birds carrying things off” videos in recent years, but this might be the wildest one yet. We’ve seen bald eagles carrying off fish and scooping up foxes and baby lambs, and those all fall short in comparison to this latest footage of a golden eagle in action.
Golden eagles are some of the biggest and most powerful birds of prey on planet Earth. They are found in various habitats across North America, Eurasia, and parts of Africa, and are known for being as majestic and deadly as any other winged creature in the skies.
And speaking of wings, their wingspan covers an impressive six to eight feet, with their bodies usually measuring in at just short of three feet. Though their size is intimidating by itself, they really earn their keep with their sharp-hooked beak and powerful talons (paired with their exquisite, long-range eyesight).
These massive birds are capable of diving at speeds greater than 150 miles per hour, and when you put that skill together with the fact that they have the strongest grip of any raptor, picking up animals of really any size is a rather easy task for them.
Golden eagles usually stick small to medium-sized mammals, like rabbits and marmots, but sometimes they can handle a much heavier payload, which brings us to the unbelievable video below. If you’ve never seen a bird carry what’s basically a full grown deer through the skies, prepare yourself.
In the clip, which is currently going viral, a golden eagle scans a mountainside in search of its next meal. When it spots a chamois (basically a mixture between a goat and a deer), the eagle decides it’s willing to test out its strength in hopes of having a feast.
The golden eagle swoops down and grasps the young chamois by the head with its talons, effortlessly lifting it off the ground. It then starts to flap its wings and gets both itself and its prey up into the air and carries it off to find a good spot to land for dinner.
Once it lands with the chamois, it screeches a call into the valleys of the surrounding mountains claiming the prey as its own. One could possibly even call it nature’s version of a dinner bell?
It just doesn’t make sense that a bird would be able to lift an animal as big as this one high up into the air, but I guess I can’t really spend too much time being puzzled by it considering I can press play on this TikTok and see all the proof that I need to