A neighbour of mine, a keen birdwatcher (but not interested in joining clubs), saw some strange behaviour of Wedge-tailed Eagles. An adult and a juvenile have been hanging around here (Percival Hill/Ginninderra Creek) for a week or so and I have reported
them. She saw the adult dropping something and repeatedly picking it up and dropping it again. She went up the hill to investigate and managed to get quite close. She had thought the WTE may have been dropping live prey to kill it. But the adult WTE was repeatedly
dropping a large stone. The juvenile followed it down as he/she picked up the stone again. The adult, my neighbour said, seemed to be teaching the juvenile. Twice when the stone was dropped she saw rabbits scatter. This led her to believe that the WTE was
scaring rabbits out of hiding although she did not actually see the WTE catch a rabbit or even try to catch a rabbit. After a while the two WTE flew further away, too far to follow them.
Does anyone have any thoughts about this? Has anyone seen or heard of this behaviour?
