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"Science fiction is the very literature of change. In fact, it is the only such literature we have."
- Frederik Pohl

Eagle With Camera  
  A live bald eagle equipped with a transmitting camera.  

With more great flappings, Semper the eagle came to ground. He folded his huge wings and turned his head jerkily, his eyes unblinking. A tiny harness held a miniature camera against his chest...

As Huyghens reached his weapon, the eagle came back overhead. He went magnificently past, a hundred feet high, careening and flapping in the tricky currents. He screamed, abruptly, and circled and screamed again. Huyghens swung a tiny vision plate from its strap to where he could look into it. He saw, of course, what the little camera on Semper’s chest could see — reeling, swaying terrain as Semper saw it, though without his breadth of field. There were moving objects to be seen through the shifting trees. Their coloring was unmistakable.

Technovelgy from Exploration Team, by Murray Leinster.
Published by Astounding in 1956
Additional resources -

I'm not sure when this was first tried, but here's a brief video showing an eagle-cam in use:

A patent for the basic idea was applied for in 1907; German apothecary Julius Neubronner used pigeons to deliver medications. A homing pigeon was fitted with an aluminium breast harness to which a lightweight time-delayed miniature camera could be attached.

Compare to the Raytron Apparatus from Beyond the Stars (1928) by Ray Cummings.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Exploration Team
  More Ideas and Technology by Murray Leinster
  Tech news articles related to Exploration Team
  Tech news articles related to works by Murray Leinster

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