Innovative study reveals the diet of reintroduced white-tailed eagles on the Isle of Wight, and insights into their piracy behaviour. <\/p>
Reintroduced juvenile white-tailed eagles<\/a> on the Isle of Wight<\/a> have been tucking into a varied diet of hares<\/a>, rabbits<\/a>, fish and even a marine invertebrate – despite fears they would go after lambs, a study from Forestry England has found.<\/p> In addition to revealing the prey items of the birds, the study, thanks to its direct observations,\u00a0also showed\u00a0how what they eat changes as the juveniles matured. Younger birds focused mainly on mammals and birds, whilst those a few years older were eating a much higher proportion of fish.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p> \u201cThe change in age is one of the most interesting things we found,\u201d says Steve Edgerton-Read, the White-tailed Eagle Project Officer at Forestry England. \u201cThat change from mammals and birds being dominant in the diet, to fish.\u201d<\/p> These direct observations also revealed some surprising prey items, including\u00a0one white-tailed eagle<\/a>\u00a0stealing a water vole<\/a> from\u00a0a marsh harrier<\/a>, and\u00a0the older juveniles learning to catch\u00a0common cuttlefish<\/a>, a\u00a0common\u00a0marine invertebrate\u00a0in the Solent<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p> \u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0not a diet item that we know of anywhere else in Europe\u00a0\u2013 I\u2019m sure it does occur, but it\u2019s not something we found in the literature,\u201d adds Edgerton-Read. \u201cSo,\u00a0this ability to exploit this super common resource, here on the south coast of England during those spring and summer months, is really impressive.\u201d\u00a0<\/p> The study required innovation from the project as the diets of white-tailed eagles are normally studied by examining the prey remains found in nests at the end of a breeding season. However,\u00a0white-tailed eagles typically reproduce at four or five years old, and\u00a0the reintroduced birds are still relatively young.<\/p> One pair has fledged a chick<\/a> \u2013 unexpectedly doing so as the two birds were only three years old \u2013 producing the first white-tailed eagle chick in England in 240 years<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p> Instead, the study involved thousands of hours of directly observing the eagles out in the field, monitoring what they were feeding on.\u00a0<\/p> The nature of the study meant\u00a0the observers could also note down the strategy used by the eagles in obtaining their food, and how frequency of the strategies changed as the eagles matured. These included hunting feeding on carrion (favoured by the younger eagles), catching live prey and pirated from another bird.\u00a0<\/p> Main image \u00a9 Dan Sayers<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n Innovative study reveals the diet of reintroduced white-tailed eagles on the Isle of Wight, and insights into their piracy behaviour. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":37125,"template":"","categories":[1,27],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2024\/05\/isle-of-wight-eagles-favour-cuttlefish-over-lamb-despite-farmers-worries.jpg",2560,1707,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2024\/05\/isle-of-wight-eagles-favour-cuttlefish-over-lamb-despite-farmers-worries-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2024\/05\/isle-of-wight-eagles-favour-cuttlefish-over-lamb-despite-farmers-worries-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2024\/05\/isle-of-wight-eagles-favour-cuttlefish-over-lamb-despite-farmers-worries-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2024\/05\/isle-of-wight-eagles-favour-cuttlefish-over-lamb-despite-farmers-worries-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2024\/05\/isle-of-wight-eagles-favour-cuttlefish-over-lamb-despite-farmers-worries-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2024\/05\/isle-of-wight-eagles-favour-cuttlefish-over-lamb-despite-farmers-worries-2048x1366.jpg",2048,1366,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Innovative study reveals the diet of reintroduced white-tailed eagles on the Isle of Wight, and insights into their piracy behaviour.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/37124"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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