A spectacular white-tailed eagle was spotted at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve on Thursday, March 13.
The raptor was seen by Christine George in the distance over the saltmarsh as she arrived to work at the discovery centre in the morning just after 9am. “I am normally wearing binoculars, but unfortunately on this occasion they were in my rucksack! I stopped and got them out and looked properly at the bird, and was stunned, there was nothing else this could have been but a white-tailed eagle. Broad, extremely long, well-fingered wings, a short tail and a strong but leisurely flight with short glides. A few gulls in flight nearby looked miniscule. As the eagle drifted off towards Fairlight, a red kite appeared, itself quite a large bird, but small in comparison to the eagle.
“I felt certain this was a white-tailed eagle, but it is such an unusual bird at Rye Harbour that I wanted someone else to see it. One of the first people to come into the discovery centre was a very excited birder who had seen the eagle take off from the ground somewhere behind Saltpool.”
Volunteer and member of staff at the reserve Phil Jones who is also a bird-ringer with extensive knowledge of the wildlife of the reserve, added: “The bird was seen later in the morning at Dungeness. It has a transmitter fitted and it is the fourth time it has visited the Dungeness peninsula. The eagle was one of the birds released as a youngster on the Isle of Wight as part of a reintroduction project. It is about four years old.”
Image Credits: Claire Hilton .