Observations of a White-tailed Eagle incubating eggs of a Greylag goose

Cover photo: Adult White-tailed Eagle. Photo: Karl-Otto Jacobsen. Interspecific takeovers of nests are thought to be rare in birds. A female White-tailed Eagle Haliaeetus albicilla was observed incubating a nest of a Greylag Goose Anser anser with five eggs at Reinøya, Troms County, Norway in 2021....

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Jacobsen, Karl-Otto, Sexton, David
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: BirdLife Norway 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:https://boap.uib.no/index.php/ornis/article/view/3926
Description
Summary:Cover photo: Adult White-tailed Eagle. Photo: Karl-Otto Jacobsen. Interspecific takeovers of nests are thought to be rare in birds. A female White-tailed Eagle Haliaeetus albicilla was observed incubating a nest of a Greylag Goose Anser anser with five eggs at Reinøya, Troms County, Norway in 2021. There were no signs of any killed geese in the area around the nest, and there had been no observations of interactions between the two species at the site before the eagle started incubating the eggs. The nest was discovered in the middle of May but was abandoned around midsummer. A similar case reported from the Isle of Mull, Scotland in 2017 was the first of its kind and originally believed to be unique, but the new case in Norway in 2021 suggests that interspecific nest takeover may not be as unusual as previously believed.