On March 8, 2023, keepers at World Bird Sanctuary in St. Louis County, Missouri, discovered that Murphy, a 31-year-old male bald eagle, had built a ground nest around a rock and was incubating it with fierce, unwavering dedication.
Murphy decorated the spot with leaves and branches, placed a rock at the center, and began sitting on it, nudging it, and screaming at the four other eagles in the aviary if they came anywhere near what keepers officially named RockBaby. The charging and screaming caused enough stress that Murphy and RockBaby were eventually moved to their own enclosure. Sanctuary staff put up a sign for confused visitors: ‘Murphy is not hurt, sick, or otherwise in distress. He has built a nest on the ground, and is very carefully incubating a rock!’
The twist came in late March 2023, when a storm blew down an aerie containing two chicks. One chick did not survive the fall. The other, bruised but healthy, was brought to World Bird Sanctuary’s Wildlife Hospital and designated Bald Eaglet 23-126. Staff fed it using a camouflage suit and an eagle hand puppet to prevent human imprinting. What the chick truly needed was a foster parent.
On April 11, sanctuary staff wrote: ‘Murphy’s dad instincts were already in high gear, but at 31 years old, he had never raised a chick before.’ The eaglet was first placed in a protective cage inside Murphy’s enclosure. On April 12, the sanctuary announced: ‘IT’S HAPPENING!!!!’
After roughly an hour of direct contact, Murphy approached the eaglet with curiosity. When staff checked later, Murphy’s whole fish had been removed from the nest and the eaglet had a full crop. Murphy had fed the baby. The internet dubbed the eaglet Dwayne, as in Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.
Murphy went on to foster a second eaglet, 24-159, with equal dedication. Tragically, Murphy died on March 15, 2025, at age 33, after suffering head trauma during a severe storm. His second eaglet, 24-159, was successfully released into the wild on January 31, 2026, at Audubon Center at Riverlands in West Alton, Missouri. World Bird Sanctuary announced plans to name their future eagle fostering aviary Murphy’s Manor in his honor.
Why This Matters
Murphy’s story is proof that the instinct to nurture can be so powerful it latches onto a rock — and eventually finds exactly what it was always looking for.
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