Greater Spotted Eagle (Clanga clanga)

Much the rarer of the two Spotted Eagles in Europe, this one is invariably found close to water bodies and wetlands. Otherwise it profits, as the Lesser Spotted Eagle does, from the juxtaposition of lowland forest, meadows and bogs, hunting chiefly over open terrain. It feeds in a similar way to the smaller eagle, but it probably takes more birds, sometimes snatching these from the surface of the water. It is not a dynamic, spectacular hunter, and rarely catches large, highly mobile animals.

By Koshy Koshy from Faridabad, Haryana, India – Greater Spotted Eagle, Dark Morph, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=110194290

The Greater Spotted Eagle is territorial, and will keep an area of a minimum 15-30km², and usually very much more, as its own. Nests are widely dispersed, and are often in quite small, isolated clumps of trees rather than in the forest proper.

The migration of this species is complicated. At least some Greater Spotted Eagles remain in Europe in the winter, particularly in Turkey, whilst others apparently head for the Middle East. Breeding birds leave their breeding grounds somewhat later than Lesser Spotted Eagles, in November and December.

From ‘Birds: A Complete Guide to All British and European Species’, by Dominic Couzens. Published by Collins and reproduced with permission.