The Little Eagle is one of the smallest species of Eagle found worldwide. They are a small to medium-sized, stocky yet powerful birds native to Australia. Due to their size and colouring, they are often confused with the Whistling Kite.

Little eagles have short, broad heads with moderately long tails, square-cut at the tip when closed. They have two ‘phases’ in their colouring – a light and a dark phase. During the light phase, when in flight, they are often mistaken for the Whistling Kite. They have heavily feathered legs, and when perched, they have a short crest. The plumage varies from light to dark brown, with a pale broken ‘M’ on the upper parts, easily visible from a distance. The underside of the wing also has a pale M-shaped band. The broad wings have a span of one metre with dark tips.

Flight

The Little Eagle has a distinctive flight pattern of soaring in tight circles with flat wings. They advertise their territory by a soaring, undulating flight display and conspicuous perching and calling.

Habitat and Distribution

The habitat of the Little Eagle is dry eucalypt, sheoak or acacia woodlands, forests and open country. They tend to avoid rainforests and the densely forested area of the Great Dividing Range. Their distribution is widespread across mainland Australia and central and eastern New Guinea.

Diet

The Little Eagle is a raptor (bird of prey) and, as such, is a carnivore. They hunt for their prey on the wing or from a high, exposed perch, taking their prey on the ground or in the tree canopy. Their prey includes rabbits, other live mammals and insects and occasionally carrion. The Little Eagle originally ate a diet of small birds, mammals, and reptiles, sometimes supplementing with insects; however, their diet changed with the introduction of foxes and rabbits. As rabbits quickly became abundant across Australia, and they found them an ideal prey source, becoming their primary diet. However, the release of the Calicivirus in 1996 caused a sharp 65% to 85% decrease in the rabbit population. At the same time, the foxes were taking their traditional prey of mammals and reptiles. With rabbits now less abundant, they also have to compete against foxes for their traditional prey.

Breeding

Little Eagles breed annually. They make their nest in mature living trees in open woodland or alongside rivers and will rarely nest in isolated trees. Instead, they create a nest in an open bowl shape constructed of twigs and branches lined with leaves. The pair will build the nests in winter, and the female lays two to three eggs in spring. The female incubates eggs for the 37-day incubation period and then feeds the hatchlings while the male hunts for food. The male, however, will hatch the chicks while the female eats the food he has brought her. The chicks will fledge in summer.

In 2009 only three breeding pairs were recorded in the ACT. However, in the 2017-2018 breeding season, a minimum of nine nesting pairs of Little Eagles were confirmed in the ACT, with four more breeding pairs just over the border in NSW. Of those eight pairs, just one chick was raised. A Currawong destroyed one nest, another breeding pair lost their egg in a storm, and the other pairs either lost eggs to unknown means or did not lay.

Threats

The main threats to the species are secondary poisoning from rabbit baiting, plus fragmentation and degradation of its habitat. The habitat loss also causes the little Eagle to compete with the larger, more dominant Wedge-tail Eagle. Once common in the ACT, they have significantly declined by over 70% in the last 20 years.

Status

They are listed on the IUCN Red List as of least concern. The conservation status of the Little Eagle is secure in NT, Qld, SA, Vic and WA. However, it is considered vulnerable throughout NSW, with only a single population. The Little Eagle is not present in Tasmania. In NSW, the Environment Dept. has added the Little Eagle to the ‘Save our species‘ program. Among other measures, they plan to raise land managers’ awareness of the risks of secondary poisoning from using Pindone or second-generation rodenticides. Instead, they encourage alternative poisons and control techniques such as warren ripping.