A pair of white-tailed eagles are still caring for their injured youngster a year after it was hurt in a nest fall, in a highly unusual act of compassion, conservationists have said.
The actions of the eagles, who are still feeding their chick and have skipped breeding this year on the Isle of Mull on the west coast of Scotland, have astonished experts.
The RSPB said the youngster injured its wing when its nest fell to the ground during stormy weather in July last year, in an incident which its sibling survived unscathed and fledged soon after.
While the parents supported the chick, its wing continued to heal and it finally took flight with a wonky wing in the autumn, but locals did not hold out much hope for it surviving the winter, the wildlife charity said. But on a boat trip with Mull Charters for an early-season white-tailed eagle monitoring check, Dave Sexton, RSPB Mull officer, saw a male scavenging a fish from the vessel as it approached the territory of the pair.
While this is normal behaviour for the birds — Britain’s largest bird of prey — he then heard the sound of a young eagle calling for food, something normally heard in August after eaglets fledge but are still reliant on their parents. He then saw the juvenile white-tailed eagle chasing its father, which flew to a new nest and gave up the fish for the youngster to feed on.
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He said: “I looked at the skipper in astonishment and we both watched on, unable to quite believe what we’d just witnessed. I was astounded to see this behaviour which was new to me despite four decades of watching white-tailed eagles in the field.
“Normally, in the autumn and certainly by the winter, all fledged young have naturally wandered away from their parent’s territory, and if they’re still loitering when the next breeding season approaches they aren’t made very welcome. But here we were watching their chick, now over a year old, still in close company with its parents and still being fed.”
He said that for the adults to be tolerating and tending to the youngster well into a new breeding season was “unprecedented” in his experience.
“Each day they share fish from Mull Charters with their injured offspring and it seems to show a previously unseen type of white-tailed eagle behaviour. We normally think of eagles as hard-wired and unemotional but clearly there might be another side to their nature,” he added.
Sexton said it would be fascinating to see how long the behaviour continued, but added: “For now, we’re just enjoying watching this unusual white-tailed eagle family doing what they want to do and caring for their youngster which can’t yet fend for itself. I loved white-tailed eagles before. Now I think I love them just a little bit more.”
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White-tailed eagles, nick-named flying barn doors because of their wingspan stretching up to 8ft, became extinct in Britain in the early 20th century due to human persecution but were successfully reintroduced in Scotland from the 1970s, and in the past few years have been released on the Isle of Wight.
The RSPB said the UK population had reached more than 150 pairs, with Mull the best place to see them in Scotland.
