“Look there,” points ranger Bart Zwiers of Natuurmonumenten near the water of the Frisian Veen. “A white tail with a golden yellow head. They’re getting closer.”
He peers over the water through his binoculars and becomes very enthusiastic when he sees the bird of prey. Then suddenly a second ‘flying door’, as the imposing sea eagle is also called, appears. “Even two bald eagles! A male and a female. Isn’t this fantastic?”
The white-tailed eagle in Drenthe is doing very well. There have never been so many sea eagles in recent years. You can find a nest in Central Drenthe, Fochteloërveen and just across the border of the province. The white-tailed eagle has been a permanent resident of Drenthe’s nature for a number of years. Are the numbers at the top now, or can we expect even more sea eagles?
As far as we know, 45 pairs nested in the Netherlands this year, reports the Zeearend Netherlands Working Group. 33 pairs had young, a total of 63.
Compared to 2024, this is an increase of 5 nests. In Drenthe we have 3 pairs of sea eagles, of which at least 3 young were raised last year.
The experts in the working group are ‘very happy’ with this and they believe that this will only increase nationally in the coming years. “We are also seeing significant growth in numbers in Denmark, so that growth will probably continue here as well,” says Andrea van den Berg of the Zeearend Netherlands working group. “It is not unrealistic that 80 pairs could breed in the Netherlands within a few years,” she estimates.
“That things are going well is determined, among other things, by the availability of food and nature recovery,” says ecologist Hans Dekker. “Sea eagles need peace and quiet and a place where they can hunt for prey. Nature restoration in recent years has created large, robust nature reserves.”
“You can see what this can mean, for example, on the border with Poland and Germany. There, sea eagles breed in loose colonies. That is simply because it is quiet there and there is a lot of food available.”
He does not rule out that in the future there will also be areas in the Netherlands where more pairs will breed in each other’s vicinity. “And if things continue to go well, it could very well be that the white-tailed eagle shows up in places where we don’t expect them.”
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