Birdwatchers were left in awe after catching a rare sighting of a booted eagle in Cornwall. The bird is thought to have come from southern or eastern Europe, with up to a dozen cars now parked up regularly at the beauty spot as fans flock to get a glimpse.
John Chapple, who filmed the bird flying in Marazion on Sunday (January 12) in the video you can watch at the top of this page, said it lingered in the area all day, giving local birders the chance to see it. He added that photo comparisons show it is the same individual that was seen in October at Kenidjack Valley in west Cornwall.
The booted eagle is a small eagle, comparable to the common buzzard in size though more eagle-like in shape. There are two relatively distinct types – pale booted eagles, which are mainly light grey with a darker head and feathers, and dark booted eagles which are mid-brown with dark grey feathers.
They have breeding populations in many different regions in both the northern and southern hemisphere. These include southern Europe, North Africa and across Asia, and also in western South Africa and Namibia.
“They are an extreme rarity in Britain, let alone in Cornwall,” John told CornwallLive. “Large raptors like eagles don’t like to travel over water. So, when these birds migrate to Africa for the winter from southern Europe, they quite often follow channels where the crossing from Europe to Africa is the narrowest, like the strait of Gibraltar.
“They don’t like crossing a large body of water which is why this is so unusual because it’s had to come across the Channel, which is around 20 odd miles at it’s narrowest point.”
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A booted eagle was spotted in Marazion
(Image: Terry Newing)
John said he thinks there have been only four previous sightings of a booted eagle in Cornwall, two of which were spotted last year. He believes that the most recent sighting is the same bird as was seen in Kenidjack Valley in the autumn.
“People have reported seeing a pale booted eagle all the way up the south coast, up to Oxfordshire since it was seen in Kenidjack,” he said. “So it’s more than likely that it’s the same bird that has been drifting around.”
Pale booted eagles have a very pale underwing, with a black band around the back of their wings, so they are easy to recognise, John said. Once word got out about the bird, he said birdwatchers from all over went to get a sight of it.
John said: “I live in Truro and when I heard about [the booted eagle] through one of the bird watching groups I’m in, I thought ‘shall I bother going?’ because they never hang around for very long but I decided to just go down on a wing and a prayer, sort of not expecting to see it.
“It was at Marazion Marsh and when I got there, I saw the eagle was miles away, so I worked out roughly if I was to drive down the road towards Helston from Long Rock, I might get a bit closer to it and that’s when I got my video of it. As the day went on, about 100 people or more came down to see it and the next day, it was packed out with about 80 or 90 people in the layby by Crowlas.”
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