White-tailed Eagle - Diet

Diet

The Eagle's diet is varied, opportunistic and seasonal. Prey specimens can often include fish, birds and mammals. Many birds live largely as scavengers, regularly pirating food from otters and other birds including cormorants, gulls, Ospreys and various other raptors. Carrion is often the primary food source during lean winter months, with fish and ungulates being preferred but everything from cetaceans to livestock to even humans being eaten after death. They are often dominant among the scavengers in their range, over all but perhaps the largest carnivorous mammals (i.e. gray wolves, etc.) However, this eagle can be a powerful hunter as well. In Scotland, this species regularly competes fiercely with Golden Eagles over the rabbits and hares either eagle may catch. In Norway, where both large eagles also occur in some numbers, this competition is not known to occur. The daily food requirement is in the region for a White-tailed eagle is in range of 500–600 g (1.1–1.3 lb). Although generally a less active hunter than the Golden Eagle, competition over food can go either way depending on the individual eagle. They can exist at higher population densities and typically outnumber Golden Eagles because of their longer gut and more efficient digestive system, being able to live better with less food.

Virtually any fish found near the surface is potential prey for the White-tailed eagle. Commercial fisheries and carp ponds are readily exploited by the eagles when available. Although they occasionally kill and harass some land birds given the opportunity, White-tailed eagles usually target water-based birds as prey. In the Baltic, the diet of this species consists mainly of sea birds (from the Little Tern to the Great Skua) and pike. Recently they are reported to have attacked and eaten Great Cormorants and in some cases destroyed whole colonies. In the Estonian island of Hiiumaa, home to at least 25 pairs of sea eagles, as many as 26 individuals have been observed simultaneously culling a single cormorant colony. In the UK, fulmar are noted as a common prey species and may contribute to locally high levels of DDT and PCB chemicals in nesting eagles. Additionally, loons, grebes, ducks, coots, auks, gulls, geese and even swans have been preyed upon. Adult, nestling and eggs of other birds are all regularly consumed. When targeting non-nesting birds, they often fly towards the waterbird repeatedly, forcing to dive again and again, until the bird is exhausted and is more easily caught. When very large prey is killed, such as swans, the prey may be dragged pulled along the surface of the water to the shore to be consumed. Live mammals consumed have ranged in size from voles to lambs and deer calves, the latter likely around the same size as the record-sized deer flown with by Bald Eagles in North America.

The single confirmed case of an eagle flying with a human being involved the White-tailed Eagle. One June 5, 1932, Svanhild Hansen, a 4-year-old girl, was playing next to her parent's farm house in Norway when a White-tailed Eagle grabbed her by the back of her dress and flew with her to its eyrie. The eyrie was 800 m (2,600 ft) up the side of the nearby mountain and about 1.6 km (0.99 mi) away in flying distance. The eagle dropped the young girl onto a narrow ledge about 15.2 m (50 ft) below the nest. After being discovered by a quickly formed search party, the little girl survived with no major injuries, ultimately having kept her talon-pierced dress throughout her life.