Desert Eagles

I’ve just returned from 2 weeks in the fabulous desert of central Western Australia. This field trip was part of a Wedge-tailed Eagle research project I’m doing in conjunction with the Department of Environment and Conservation at Lorna Glen. The aim was to locate as many eagle nests as possible and get a picture of eagle breeding density across the landscape. The DEC has reintroduced several species of threatened native mammals (including Bilbies, Boodies and Golden Bandicoots) here, so I am particularly interested in eagle diet to see if the wedgies are taking any ‘native prey’ yet, and keeping track of diet to see if they begin to in the future.

My good friend Jeff and I had a fantastic fortnight - we found 38 eagle nests (35 new ones), 11 of which were active and 7 of these contained either eggs or chicks. How exciting! We managed to get some great information about nest site characteristics and record the location of nests, which I will revisit in November to collect prey remains from.

Click here to look at photo album from my latest trip, which includes a whole lot of cool wildlife and landscapes from this spectacular part of Australia.