An elusive white-tailed eagle has returned to his UK home – two years after completing a staggering 10,000-mile tour of Europe, and despite losing one of his feet. The rare bird is part of an ongoing conservation project run by the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation aimed at encouraging the species to live on the Isle of Wight.
As part of the project, the young eagle, who has been given the catchy name G463, was tracked using a GPS device.
As a result, they discovered the bird had flown to France, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden.
During the course of his journey, the bird of prey lost one of his feet, in December 2021, but still continued to fly around Europe for more than a year.
Tim Mackrill, 41, who works at the foundation, said the two-year-old eagle was the first to cross the English Channel and venture into to mainland Europe.
He said: “We’ve found out that for the first two years of their lives, the eagles are very nomadic.
“We’ve had some birds that have flown from the Isle of Wight right to the north coast of Scotland.
“But then we’ve had this one, which is the first one to cross the English Channel, who flew through a lot of Western Europe.
“It went through France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and then it even went all the way up to Sweden last spring.
“But because it was released on the Isle of Wight, it basically regards it as its home now so as it’s getting older and it’s thinking about breeding, it’s coming back to England.”
All the birds are fitted with GPS tracking devices, enabling their flight paths to be monitored.
Last year, one bird returned to the Isle of Wight after 17 months away, during which he travelled 6,800 miles.
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“White-tail eagles are also scavengers so they might feed on dead animal carcasses and bird carcasses so it could be a combination of the two things basically.
“The fact he has been alive for a year means that he has learnt to adapt.”
The white-tailed eagle, also known as the sea eagle, is the UK’s largest bird of prey, with a huge wingspan of up to 2.5 metres.
They are usually found along rocky coastlines, estuaries and lochs near the sea, although they will also range inland, especially when they are younger.
It has been reintroduced to the UK after being driven to extinction through persecution and pesticide use.
