Just a few minutes after I’d photographed the Strzelecki peaks’ seaward-facing side, I noticed a large raptor, gliding above the nearby beach.
It was soon obvious that s/he was a wedge-tailed eagle – Australia’s largest raptor, and one of the world’s bigger eagles.
Wedge-tails’ plumage darkens as they get older.
The pictured individual’s relatively light colour and highly variegated plumage strongly suggest that s/he was a juvenile – probably, one “enjoying” his or her first year of independent living.
Wedge-tails – young ones, especially – sometimes cover 200 kilometres in a single day.
Over the course of several days, a young wedge-tail’s continuous, single-direction flight path can traverse more than 1,000 kilometres.
I strongly suspect that our two other Flinders Island wedge-tail encounters also involved the pictured individual.
For a substantial dose of amazement, visit Simon Cherriman’s wedge-tailed eagle tracking blog, which also has many interesting photos.