WITH DON KNOWLER

A wedge-tailed eagle which posed a threat to a German schnauzer in my sister-in-law’s garden has returned with a vengeance – this time to disrupt the family’s plans to sell their home.

In June I wrote the eagle had carried off a baby wallaby from the home overlooking the Tamar north of Launceston and then eyed the schnauzer which Judith Stanton was minding while its owner, her son and his family, took a holiday.

This time the eagle was not looking for a quick meal. The raptor was interested in an estate agent’s drone which was taking pictures of the property. The territorial eagle had long regarded the Stanton garden and the airspace above as its own.

Birds and drones don’t mix, especially when the power of a wedge-tailed eagle – the fourth biggest eagle in the word – is involved. Either the drone gets crushed by the eagle’s talons, or the eagle itself sustains damage from the drone’s blades.

An email from the Stantons alerting me to the eagle’s antics prompted research into drone-raptor wars in both Australia and other parts of the world and I soon discovered that when it comes to drone attacks internationally, the Australian wedge-tailed eagle rules supreme.

This status was afforded to it by the Wall Street Journal no less, in an article highlighting the trouble that a business involved in surveying for mines in Western Australia had with eagles. The company had in fact bowed to eagle supremacy, and had instituted a policy of flying drones at times when eagles were less likely to be about. This was early morning before the thermals – exploited by eagles for effortless, gliding flight – had been created by the sun warming the ground.

In other parts of the world, eagles have proven so good at bringing down flying objects that some military forces have even trained them to intercept and capture enemy drones. In the UK, eagles have been used to stop associates of prison inmates from using drones to carry drugs over jail walls. In France and the Netherlands, raptors have been trained to attack drones that may be involved in terrorist activities.

Wild raptors don’t have experience with such aerial objects. The blades of most recreational drones can injure or kill. And territorial birds, do not shy away when they feel under threat. Eagles, hawks, and even geese readily attack anyone and anything that approaches their nests.

In the case involving the Tamar Valley property, there was a happy ending, or at least a stalemate. The eagle inspected the drone at close quarters, flying alongside it, and decided this humming creature was no threat and subsequently went on its way.