Havørne spiser fisk
Hjem The animals Sea eagle

Sea eagles eat fish

Sea eagles live primarily of fish, that they catch in areas with shallow water. They will also catch birds, and in Scandinavian Wildlife Park they really like cow heart.

When a sea eagle becomes hungry, it likes to find a good vantage point where it can use it’s fantastic eyesight to monitor an area with shallow water. This may be at the top of a tall tree. When it catches sight of a fish underwater, it drops down from the tree, spreads its enormous wings, and extends its talons. If fast enough, it will catch an unsuspecting fish and dinner is served.

Ørn fanger med kløerne

Sometimes the sea eagles also wade around on shallow water to catch fish. Here they can grab fish and other bottom-living animals with their huge talons, or simply stick their entire head underwater, and grab the fish with their beak.

Sea eagles also catch birds

If you have ever seen how a group of ducks behave when a sea eagle shows up in the sky, you have no doubt that the sea eagle also has birds on its menu. The eagles can circulate long over a bunch of ducks before diving down and putting their talons in one of them.

When the prey weighs less than 2.5 kg, the sea eagle can easily fly away with it, but if there is goose on the menu, it is another story. Sea eagles can catch geese even if they weigh more than the sea eagles themselves, but then they use a slightly different technique. They repeatedly dive down over the goose, which of course tries to get away from the sea eagle. At one point, the goose is so exhausted that the sea eagle can simply land on the goose. The sea eagle then slaps their talons around the goose’s neck, using its enormous wings to row ashore.

Food in Scandinavian Wildlife Park

Here in the park you can see how the sea eagles fish in the daily sea eagle show. Here they catch artificial fish, where they can pick out a small dead day-old chick as a reward. If you’re lucky, you can even see how they wade and fish in the shallow water, when small pieces of cow heart are thrown into the lake.