Is a video of a cat guarding an eagle's nest to keep a snake from eating the eggs authentic? No, that's not true: The video was made by artificial intelligence tools. One telltale sign is the snake's two tails seen in the first four seconds. Also, the structure of the nest and the branches of the tree change significantly from the first half to the second half of the video. Finally, eagles are known to kill cats and feed them to their young, not enlist them as egg-sitters.
The video appeared across social platforms, including in a post (archived here) shared on TikTok on September 16, 2025. This post included a caption that read:
Every nest has its secret guardian.
This is what the video looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
@sam.astefo2 #nest #cat #fyp #viral #tiktok ♬ الصوت الأصلي - Sam Astefo
(Source: TikTok)
AI-generated videos are getting harder to detect from real images as the technology to make them improves, but this clip included easy-to-see flaws that are signs of fake videos. Watch the snake in the first four seconds for an obvious clue. It has two tails initially, but one of them melts away.
This is a screenshot three seconds into the 15-second clip:
(Source: screenshot of TikTok by Lead Stories)
In the lower-left corner, the snake has two tails:
(Source: screenshot of TikTok by Lead Stories)
At four seconds, one of the tails has almost completely melted away:
(Source: screenshot of TikTok by Lead Stories)
The odd second tail finally disappears a half-second later:
(Source: screenshot of TikTok by Lead Stories)
After a tap on the snake's snout convinces the reptile to return the stolen egg and slither away, the cat sits alone. Compare the details of the nest and the tree branches around it to the nest and branches as the eagle parent returns:
(Source: screenshot of TikTok by Lead Stories)
There were two branches behind the cat earlier:
Source: screenshot of TikTok by Lead Stories)
The smaller tree branch, like the second snake tail, disappeared:
(Source: screenshot of TikTok by Lead Stories)
Besides the notable inconsistencies in the video, it is also unlikely that a cat would climb up to an eagle's nest, which would rest near the top of a tall tree. A Google search for "eagle nest cat" did find videos of cats in an eagle's nest, but the circumstances were far different than this "secret guardian" arrangement. Each real video involved the eagle flying up to its nest for dinner.
(Source: screenshot of Google.com by Lead Stories)
