Kidnapping Bird of Prey
A very old, but still popular animal stereotype: a Big Badass Bird of Prey (usually an eagle, condor or a vulture) picks up a child or a small animal from the ground and carries it off to its nest to be eaten.
Mostly an Urban Legend, since everything weighing more than 4 pounds is far too heavy to be carried off by these birds, making this a case of Somewhere an Ornithologist Is Crying. They will prefer Vertical Kidnapping smaller animals. Yet, there have been many cases throughout history where babies or little children were merely attacked by large birds, and some eagles are perfectly capable of killing prey too large to actually carry off.
Pterosaurs often take on this role in prehistoric settings, in spite of the fact that not only were most of them also too light to carry off even a child, they didn't even have grasping feet!
Subtrope of Feathered Fiend.
Comic Books
- Popeye: The Witch has a giant vulture who picks up people and flies them to her.
- In Tintin, in the album Tintin and the Temple of the Sun, a large condor catches Tintin's dog, Snowy. Tintin actually climbs to the bird's nest in the mountains to rescue his dog.
- In the Nero album "De Bende van de Zwarte Kous", a vulture picks up the child Petoetje and carries him off.
- The same happens to Nero's son, Adhemar, in the album "De Lolifanten".
- In the album "De Vliegende Handschoen", various friends of Nero, including adults (!) are kidnapped by his pet eagle.
- In the album "De Ring van Balderic" a statue of an eagle comes to life and carries off the little boy Clo-Clo.
Film
- It happened on film as early as 1907 in Edwin S Porter's "Rescued from an Eagle Nest". https://web.archive.org/web/20121126052430/http://focusfeatures.com/article/great_babies_of_history?film=babies
- In Popeye Meets Sindbad the Sailor, a roc carries Olive Oyl away.
- In Jurassic Park III, a Pteranodon carries off a human boy.
Literature
- In Dream Park, guide Kasan Maibang is nearly carried off by a giant hornbill early in the South Seas Treasure Game.
- Snowkit gets kit-napped by a hawk despite his mom Speckletail trying to get him back. Not being able to hear anything was also not a good sign.
Western Animation
- One episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender saw Momo carried off by a buzzard-wasp. Said buzzard-wasp was struck down by Aang mere moments later.
Real Life
- The Taung Child, the fossilized skull of an early hominid, was recently discovered to have been killed by an eagle.
- The Lawndale Incident. On July 25, 1977, a ten year old boy named Marlon Lowe was playing outside his home when an pair of gigantic birds flew overhead. One of them swooped down and snatched Marlon up, carried him a few feet, and then dropped him unharmed onto the ground after his mother chased after it shouting. This story would probably be less believable if there weren't at least seven witnesses present...