The mark of Cain

IS NATURE nasty? The behaviour of baby eagles in the nest might lead you to think so. A golden eagle chick has hatched at Glenveagh National Park in County Donegal, the first Irish-born eagle in almost a hundred years.

Its parents were brought to Ireland from Scotland as part of the Golden Eagle Reintroduction Project.

Lorcan O’Toole, who directs the project says that the female nested last year but her eggs failed to hatch. Unusually for eagles, which are monogamous, the pair went their separate ways and she took up with a new partner. They had two babies this year but one of them perished, almost certainly a victim of the notorious ‘Cain and Able’ syndrome, a strange behaviour of young eagles.