BOOTED EAGLE-REMENHAM HILL-BERKSHIRE

News broke early this morning that a dark-morph Booted Eagle had been discovered two days previously during a volunteer work party by Alan Lewis, and had then been refound today, a few miles away by Chris Heard. With it already too late to travel down that evening, I arranged to meet Dan Pointon the following morning in the hope that the bird might linger.

Having narrowly missed the pale-morph Booted Eagle in Cornwall just a few weeks earlier, expectations were cautious but hopeful. We met shortly after 07:00, before driving to the eastern side of Warburg Nature Reserve, where the eagle had originally been located. Alan Lewis was already on site and actively searching. Despite a good number of Red Kites and Common Buzzards, there was no immediate sign of the eagle.

We then relocated to Remenham Hill, pulling into a layby overlooking the area where the bird had been seen the previous day. The concentration of Red Kites was remarkable; by 09:00, we had already counted over seventy birds drifting across the landscape. At approximately 09:30, while scanning north towards Remenham Hill, Dan suddenly called out, “I’ve got it!”

The Booted Eagle was soon picked up, although it was being relentlessly mobbed by Red Kites. As Dan alerted other birders to the sighting, the eagle dropped into the woodland, temporarily disappearing from view. By this time, Ash Howe, Simon King, and James Hanlon had arrived, having been nearby.

It was not long before the eagle re-emerged, again under pressure from corvids, and flew directly towards us. The views were exceptional, allowing prolonged observation of this impressive raptor at close range before it eventually drifted back towards the hillside and landed once more. It was a striking and memorable encounter, made all the more special by the bird's proximity.

Booted Eagle (C) Simon King

Later attempts to gain further views from the opposite side of the River Thames proved less successful. The eagle was seen flying east over Henley, and subsequent sightings were distant.

Birders on site

Previous Records and Context

Earlier this year, a dark-morph Booted Eagle was photographed in Cornwall in May, representing the first time this morph has been captured on camera in Britain since the well-known pale morph that occurred in Ireland and Britain between February 1999 and June 2000. That individual remains in Category D of the British List.

The Chilterns bird is widely believed to be the same dark-morph individual seen in Cornwall earlier in 2024. Its appearance coincided with the annual post-breeding influx of Red Kites into the region, and it appears to have been loosely associated with these birds as they returned to the Chilterns. Given that parts of the area are relatively under-watched, it is entirely possible that the eagle had been present locally for some time before its discovery.