looduskalender.ee

 

 

 This morning the goshawk once more attacked lesser spotted eagle Stephi. The goshawk managed to drag the spotted eagle out of the nest. Joosep from Eagle club (Kotkaklubi) who arrived in the nest forest a few hours ago to check the situation  (a living eaglet would have been possible to get back into the nest) found the killed lesser spotted eagle under the nest tree. Meanwhile the goshawk had managed to crush the head of the eaglet and remove it from the body. The bird has been brought to Dr. Madis Leivits’s clinic for autopsy.

 

Stephi weighed a few hundred grams less than two kilos and the wing spread was already 40 centimetres – that means a juvenile able to fly.

 

The attacker was the female goshawk that is almost half as heavy again as the male, but still up to half a kilo less than the spotted eagle juvenile. Common larger prey animals for a goshawk are forest-living gallinaceous birds, crows and also hares. The weight of the attacker can be estimated at less than a kilo and a half. A week or two ago the same bird harassed Stephi but unsuccessfully because it got hold of the wing feathers of the spotted eagle

 

 

Lesser spotted eagle adult arrives to an empty nest.