Welcome home. The first Little Eagles have returned to their nests in the Australian Capital Territory and surrounding parts of New South Wales. Although it is still officially late winter there have been some bright sunny spring-type days and after some decent rainfall in autumn and winter the land is green, so different from the dry dust and smoke of last summer.
A pale morph male Little Eagle glides over his dark morph mate as she sits atop their nest tree. The tree is alive, only the top branches are dead.
The nest which has new sticks added, is concealed in the foliage.
The pair were calling excitedly to one another,
the male diving past her as she lifted her wings.
Then upon some signal between them, he jumped from the next branch and they copulated. Note how her tail is fully turned and tilted to one side, and his tail is firmly pressed over her cloaca. His talons are held forward and loosely closed as he balanced on his heels.
After a minute or so, he gently launched up off her back.
He landed next to her and both birds began preening and staightening their plumage.
Several minutes later, the male took off and went away hunting, soaring low over the nearby treetops.
When the female took off about half an hour later later, she flew a different line, past her neighbours. And she quickly turned in alarm.
Her neighbours are Australian Magpies and one swooped very very close to her. The magpies have their nest three trees away and they will attack any animal they consider to be a threat to their nest, eggs or young, including humans. The eagle is more than capable of protecting herself, better than humans, and she casually drifted away to hunt over a nearby creek line.