Planted motion-activated wildlife cameras are great because we get to have a unique view of how animals act naturally in their habitats. Sometimes the perspective is a little more natural than anticipated, as was the case in Australia recently.

Intended for monitoring crocodiles in the Margaret River, park officials placed a camera that eventually went missing this past spring. Because wildlife cameras are frequently displaced by wildlife, it was assumed that it got knocked into the water and that the camera was lost. A few weeks ago, the camera was recovered about 68 miles (110 kilometers) away near the Mary River.

Though the camera had obviously taken a beating, they were able to recover about 90 seconds of fragmented footage. They were able to determine the culprit: a young eagle. The camera is angled up, so it doesn’t show you what it would be like to soar like an eagle, but it does show you what it would feel like to be a terrified small mammal who is about to be lunch. The footage shows the camera being picked up from the riverbank and flown to a rock cliff where the curious bird pecks and scratches at it.

The eagle was likely young because older eagles fly up with prey and drop it, killing it on impact. If an older eagle had gotten its talons on the camera, it probably would have been obliterated.

Check out the footage: