THE Southern Star is inviting readers to come up with a name for a new white-tailed eagle that has fledged in Glengarriff.
The plan is to pass on the suggested names to the National Parks and Wildlife Service for consideration before ‘GA13’ leaves home.
Earlier this year, the pair of white-tailed sea eagles, resident in Glengarriff, raised another female chick.
‘The new chick fledged in July, but she is still around the Glengarriff area, hanging out with her parents, learning how to catch fish and seabirds,’ Clare Heardman, an ecologist with the wildlife service told The Southern Star. ‘We expect she will leave Glengarriff in the next few weeks and start to make her own way in the world.’
She was satellite-tagged in June – at eight weeks old – so the wildlife service will be able to trace her movements. She isn’t named, but her unique code GA13 has been attached to her leg ring. Her siblings include Sunniva, who fledged in 2020, Cuileann who fledged in 2022, and the similarly unnamed ‘GA05’ who fledged in 2023.
‘All of the four surviving eagles that have fledged in Glengarriff have been satellite-tagged so we can tell that Sunniva has been visiting Wild Nephin National Park in Mayo, Cuileann is at the Killarney National Park, and GA05 is on the Iveragh Peninsula,’ said Clare.
