What do golden eagles eat and why is this important to landscape scale restoration?

What do golden eagles eat and why is this important to landscape scale restoration?

Here at WildLand, we believe in answering such questions to provide robust baseline data to inform us about our cherished wildlife and future land management decisions.

Where landscape scale restoration is taking place, like that at WildLand Cairngorms, we wish to understand how the diet of our golden eagles may change as habitat improvements move towards its full ecological potential. Undertaking informative studies like this will allow us to understand how predators and their prey interact as the landscape changes. This work will also contribute to the wider Cairngorms Connect Predator Prey project. 

To gather this baseline data, prey remains (bones, feathers, fur and pellets) from three golden eagle nests over two years were collected and later analysed alongside reference material. Nest sites were visited during September once the young eaglets had left their natal area. Below is a list of prey collected from one nest site on Gaick Estate in the western Cairngorms.

Red Grouse – 28

Ptarmigan – 2

Red Grouse juvenile – 2

Red fox (large cub) – 1

Red deer calf – 1

Mountain hare – 1

This type of prey collection and analysis represents the approximate prey composition and without comprehensive camera footage it is the best method available. Perhaps, as the habitats regenerates and then becomes capable of holding a greater diversity of species we will then see a greater variety of prey in the eagle’s diet. In the absence of predator control, the discovery of a fox cub in the nest is of particular interest as it demonstrates the role of the golden eagle as an apex predator and its ability to control meso-predators.