A massive bald eagle nest was struck by lightning in Colorado, and not much was left to be salvaged.
According to Whiskey Riff, the pair of bald eagles who had built the nest had been using it for years. The video of the strike was first shared to Instagram via the Colorado Sun's official page. Notably, the nest was perched in a tree near Stearns Lake in Boulder County, Colorado. For years, the nest had been monitored by video. Such made the capture of such an incredible video possible.
The camera that captured the strike sat 500 yards away. The footage of the strike is very high quality, and legitimately shocking to watch. The nest, which was quite large, seemed to take a direct lightning hit. The explosion that followed left very little of the nest to be salvaged. Some bald eagle nests are known to be somewhere between four and five feet in width. Likewise, the nests can be two to three feet deep.
While exact dimensions for this particular nest were not known, it is easy to tell in the video that the nest was large. The bald eagles who used the nest had done so for years, hatching and raising eagles in it with each passing year.
Large Bald Eagle Nest Struck By Lightning In Colorado
In the video, a careful eye can spot the female bald eagle and a red-tailed hawk perched on the tree as the strike occurred. Certainly, the strike caused the pair some trouble. Both the eagle and hawk wound up turned upside down after the bolt of lightning struck the tree. Fascinatingly, they help onto the branch, even after turning over. Moreover, the female bald eagle eventually recovered from the event and has been seen with the same male eagle, searching for a new place to build a new nest.
Notably, it has not been confirmed that the red-tailed hawk survived the lightning strike. Despite the hawk's presumed death, and the destruction of the nest, the survival of the female eagle feels like a "win" after such a violent strike of lightning.
