I came across the following article in another birding site and thought it might be of interest to UK birders;
""I was given recently an interesting article from the Tasmanian {southernmost island state of Australia} newspaper "The Examiner" (Wed, 18th December 2002) and the story was further corrected by a later article in another Tasmania newspaper "The Saturday Mercury" by a regular columnist Don Knowler (which I was also given but did not get the date of the article), about a Peregrine that killed a White-bellied Sea-eagle at Judgement Rocks in Bass Strait seen by 2 observers (volunteers for Wildcare) from a fishing vessel. They watched the Sea-eagle for an hour raiding the nests of Gulls along a cliff face and at the whole time being constantly harrassed by a Peregrine Falcon (reminds me recently regarding a number of raptor species in the same situation at the East Maitland Tip).Once the Sea-Eagle had enough of feeding on the Gull eggs, it spread its wings and dropped from the cliff. As the eagle manouvered its body for flight, the Peregrine swooped and hit the eagle in the neck. There was a crack and the eagle plummeted in the water. The crew headed towards the eagle, tried to revive it but it was dead. Instantly killed by the blow from the Peregrine, about quarter the size of the eagle)"".
No mention is made of the peregrine attempting to devour the eagle. My guess is that it was protecting it's convenient supply of off the shelf 'instant meals'.
Nancy
""I was given recently an interesting article from the Tasmanian {southernmost island state of Australia} newspaper "The Examiner" (Wed, 18th December 2002) and the story was further corrected by a later article in another Tasmania newspaper "The Saturday Mercury" by a regular columnist Don Knowler (which I was also given but did not get the date of the article), about a Peregrine that killed a White-bellied Sea-eagle at Judgement Rocks in Bass Strait seen by 2 observers (volunteers for Wildcare) from a fishing vessel. They watched the Sea-eagle for an hour raiding the nests of Gulls along a cliff face and at the whole time being constantly harrassed by a Peregrine Falcon (reminds me recently regarding a number of raptor species in the same situation at the East Maitland Tip).Once the Sea-Eagle had enough of feeding on the Gull eggs, it spread its wings and dropped from the cliff. As the eagle manouvered its body for flight, the Peregrine swooped and hit the eagle in the neck. There was a crack and the eagle plummeted in the water. The crew headed towards the eagle, tried to revive it but it was dead. Instantly killed by the blow from the Peregrine, about quarter the size of the eagle)"".
No mention is made of the peregrine attempting to devour the eagle. My guess is that it was protecting it's convenient supply of off the shelf 'instant meals'.
Nancy