Video: fisherman rescues drowning bald eagle

When you go fishing, a bald eagle isn’t exactly something you’d expect to catch.

Don Dunbar thought he was just going to be having a quiet day of fishing in a bay in British Columbia, but ended up being a bird-taxi for a fledgling bald eagle who’d clearly been bunking swimming class. Bald eagles are usually able to swim quite well, using their wings as paddles, but that wasn’t an option for this exhausted fellow. Seeing an eagle climb meekly onto the side of a boat, after being called, is probably one of the weirdest things you’ll see today.

(Don’t be too irritated by the bit where he has his finger over the camera. It doesn’t last long.)

According to National Geographic, this guy probably got confused when catching a very heavy fish. Instinct says that you should never let go of food – a fish in the claws is worth two in the sea, and all that – so if it was just too hefty for him to carry away, he’d have stayed locked in a catch-22. After being brought to shore, he was still too exhausted to fly away and found to be very underweight. He’s now being rehabilitated at the Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society (where he ate a whole quail upon arrival) and will be returned to the wild within a few months.