The 2012 cohort of east coast white-tailed eagles have been in the wild for over two weeks already! Since their release, we have been maintaining a food dump at the release site to help them get started.
In the wild, when the young birds fledge, the adults will regularly provision them with the odd fish or piece of carrion here and there until they can confidently hunt independently. As there are no adult birds in the area to help the young east coast fledglings during their first few weeks in the wild, we do our best by leaving food out for them in the woods that they “fledged” from.
It took the young birds almost a week to discover the food dump and to start using it. The first bird to arrive was Gray A-a young male that was released on the first day of releases on the 20th of August. He struggled to land on it the first time round as it was a very windy day, but now that he is a more competent flyer, he is having no trouble getting stuck in!
Gray T, a female who shared an aviary with Gray A joined him the following day, and eventually Gray X- another young female released on the 24th.
We have been fortunate enough to have the use of a motion-sensing camera on the food dump that can take photographs when there is a bird at the food dump. This has provided us with extremely useful and interesting information about which birds are coming in to use it and when....and also some of the behavioural quirks that are being displayed here!
This has proved quite fascinating, and a clear “pecking order” seems to have been established with Gray T the more dominant individual!
She seems to be tolerating Gray A more than Gray X, and we have been getting regular footage of some squabbling between T and X!
There has been no sign of Red E (the 2011 male that has been seen in the woods) using the food dump yet, or Gray H and R. Maybe they're tired of venison!
Karen, that's exactly what happened! I'll try and post a picture of this for you to see!
Good to see GreyT getting stuck into her food - she certainly looked well soaring around and no wonder if she's taken charge at the food dump! I can just imagine in the above photo the others queued up out of shot awaiting their turn lol!
Hi Derek, Red E was actually one of the most adventurous birds of 2011. Two weeks after release, he flew to Northumberland!! Unfortunately, this proved a bit too much for him, and he was recued and eventually returned (by car) to Fife where he was rehabilitated! He hasn't vetured that far since and has stayed in the Fife/Perthshire area! I'm glad he's made an apperance at the release site. It's great to see the older birds come back!
Thanks for the update, Rhian!
Interesting to see that Red E is still around. Did he ever leave?
I visited the area numerous times up until late November last year and
he was always there along with his pal Red P!
He's obviously a bit of a home bird!