Elegant Bird Tries to Steal Eagle's Meal: Big Mistake

Key Points:

Witness this video where an elegant white egret tries to snatch an eagle’s meal away as the eagle feasts inside a cage at Featherdale Wildlife Park in Sydney, Australia.
The eagle purposely puts the meal closer to the edge of the cage, tempting the egret to try again. When it does, the egret encounters a scary situation.
In the wild, a black eagle is an apex predator who, if was challenged by a bird like an egret over a meal, would certainly overcome the bird easily.

Largest Eagles in the World: Verreaux’s Eagle — Verreaux’s eagle (Aquila verreauxii) also called the black eagle.
©Eleanor Esterhuizen/Shutterstock.com

Birds with long necks: Great Egret — Verreaux’s eagle (Aquila verreauxii) also called the black eagle.
©Eleanor Esterhuizen/Shutterstock.com

As most people say, bizarre things often happen anywhere in Australia, as almost 80% of the world’s mammals, reptiles, frogs, and even plants can be found only in this place. Because of that, locals and tourists get to experience once-in-a-lifetime encounters between animals, just like what is seen here in a video taken at Featherdale Wildlife Park in Sydney, Australia.

This short 26-second clip shows a caged Black Eagle and a type of elegant bird called The Great White Egret.

The Black Eagle’s home territory is tropical and subtropical Asia, from Nepal to India and Sri Lanka. So the black eagle in the video is most likely a visitor to the Wildlife Park in Australia. The Great White Egret lives anywhere in the world where there are warm waters.

At first, the video looks like a hilarious scene wherein the egret watches over the eagle inside its cage. But then the egret tries to snatch the eagle’s meal using its long yellow bill. The eagle quickly responds to its meal being stolen by attempting to grab the egret’s bill using its sharp claws. Fortunately, the egret avoids the eagle’s potential attack.

The eagle quickly grabs its food and tries to eat in peace, but who wouldn’t be agitated when you know something is observing you and planning to steal your food? Well, we think this is what the eagle has in mind as he tries to put his meal away from the conspicuous egret.

A few moments later in the video, the eagle seems to have a trick up its sleeve as he puts his meal as near as possible to the edges of the cage, where the egret could try to steal the food one more time.

The egret apparently did not know that trying to steal from a ferocious bird of prey is indeed a huge mistake. Normally, an egret spends most of its day feeding in shallow water. There is no shallow water in or near the eagle’s cage, so what is this egret thinking? An egret can be aggressive when feeding or defending its nest, but that is not exactly the case here unless the egret is hungry. The eagle is always aggressive, and as an apex bird, not accustomed to being challenged by anything.

As soon as the eagle drops the food near where the egret is standing, it stares at the egret and hopes for it to strike again for its food. When the egret thinks it’s the perfect time for it to grab the food, the eagle strikes almost immediately. holding the helpless egret’s long bill with its claws—similar to how black eagles use their claws to swoop over and grab their prey in the wild. The egret flinches as it struggles to get out of the eagle’s claws.

After the unusual fight encounter between the eagle and the disappointed egret, the egret finally gives up and decides that it should look elsewhere for its own meal. A great white egret and a black eagle have approximately the same lifespans of 15-16 years, so perhaps the egret has decided not to risk shortening its life by coexisting peacefully.

Do Elegant Birds and Eagles Normally Compete For Food?

With South Asia as one place where their native habitats overlap, it is possible for Black Eagles and Great White Egrets to encounter each other in the wild. It seems likely that an elegant bird challenging an eagle for food anywhere in the world would not fare much better than this one did. Black eagles use their curved sharp claws to maintain their reputation as apex predators. This means that they hunt other animals, but no other animal regularly hunts them. It’s a fact that this elegant bird almost had to learn the hard way!