THE magnificent sight of a wedge-tailed eagle soaring against the backdrop of the Grampians was seen up close last week as a rehabilitated young male bird took flight in the wild for the first time in 18 months.

‘Radford’, now a four-year-old raptor, was caught in April last year by Hamilton Wildlife Shelter after he had originally been sighted multiple times in the area being only able to fly at low altitudes and for short distances; it was suspected he had been hit by a car and may have even spent some time afterwards in someone’s chook pen in a misguided attempt to get him back to health.

After spending time in rehab at a specialised ‘Raptor Rescue’ facility near Bendigo as part of the Wildlife Rescue Emergency Service run by president Neil Morgan, he was released and able to spread his wings back in the area nearby to where he was found.

The birds are known to inhabit much of Australia’s outback, but varied topographical areas such as the Grampians suit them well.

Hamilton Wildlife Shelter owner/operator, Shelly Burrowes, said when she received the first call about the distressed eagle the initial attempt to find him had been unsuccessful, but a later call from farm hand, Rebecca McKoy, yielded a better result.

“I initially got a call from another property and went out there and looked for it, but it had disappeared,” she said.

“Then a few weeks later, we got a call from Rebecca about a wedge-tailed eagle on the property that she was working on that couldn’t fly and it was in a similar area, so I went up there that day.

“I had my friend Emma with me. We went out there and we actually couldn’t find it. Then right at the end, I think as we were leaving, I spotted it.”

Finding him was one thing, capturing him was another.

“The thing with eagles is, when they can’t fly, they can still run like the wind, so that’s why I always take a second person with me,” Shelly said.

“Basically, you have to run them down and we were able to sort of triangulate it between the two of us and a dam.

“They’ve got such powerful legs; they can run and just jump over a fence and keep going.”

Shelly said this task was only ever a job for professionals as the eagles can inflict very serious injuries in seconds when handling - “they’re very, very quick” - but even if captured successfully she emphasised that even her own wildlife facility wasn’t set up to keep such big birds.

“I don’t have the facilities to house a wedge-tailed eagle long term, so Neil is a really great resource to have in that regard,” she said.

Rebecca offered to drive the eagle to Bendigo, where he would end up spending a long time in recovery.

Male wedge-tailed eagles are usually an average of about 25 per cent smaller than their female counterparts, and although their plumage is indistinguishable by sex, their age can be more readily judged as juveniles have different colouring that takes several years to change as they get older.

The bird’s lifespan has been known to reach 40 years in captivity, but in the wild it is estimated they usually live to about 25 years.

Neil said he was happy to take on the rehabilitation but explained how it was a long journey to get the bird back to health in one of his large aviaries.

“He had a lot of soft tissue damage,” he said.

“It took him months and months to even get up to the first perch here … he was really struggling when he first came in.

“If they can’t get up to that, they’re going to be here for quite a while.”

Neil said the primary flight feathers were missing and he was “really concerned” with signs of “being contained in a chicken pen, walking back and forwards day in, day out” as certain injuries presented themselves as likely occurring after being in captivity.

The good news was X-rays revealed no broken bones, but Radford was going to need a long time to go through an entire moult of his feathers to get back to full health - it ended up being well over a year as he needed to lose all of his damaged feathers first.

Neil said the key factor for his impending release was when he had regrown full flight feathers and would be able to fly longer - in the wild they have been observed soaring as high as 3000 metres but are typically capable of circling for long periods on thermal currents at about 1800m.

So, a big milestone with the rehab was to see the eagle get up to the highest perch in the enclosure.

“To be able to get to the top of that you need really, really good flight muscles,” Neil said.

“There’s a lot to it, it’s not just put them in a cage and hope.”

Neil said it was also “very important” the birds go back to where they were originally captured, and it gave him “a lot of satisfaction” to see them go back fully recovered.

“It’s really, really enjoyable,” he said.

“Even after 18 months of being in rehab, they still have this knack of knowing where they are.”

Re-enter Rebecca McCoy - not content reporting him to Hamilton Wildlife Shelter and bringing the eagle to Bendigo, she also offered to drive out to take the recovered bird back home.

She said she’s “always been an animal rescuer” and being able for once to see the whole story from start to finish was a great thrill.

“Normally, you don’t get to do that,” Rebecca said.

“If you find an injured animal, you might call up the wildlife people and either take it to them, or they’ll come and collect it, but then you don’t normally see the other end of it when they get released.”

“I kept in contact with the wildlife carer in Bendigo throughout the process just to keep an eye on how he’s going.

“When I dropped him off (I said) that I’d be happy to bring him back down; I knew exactly where he came from and I’d be happy to be involved.”

Rebecca said when the time came to open up the cage and release Radford, he took his time figuring out what he was going to do.

“He took a little bit of encouraging to actually get out of the cage,” she said.

“But once he got out, he had a bit of a strut forward … he sussed us all out, had a bit of a look round, ‘oh yeah, ok, I remember this place’ and then just took off and flew a good 300 metres across the wind and landed in a big tree. And that was it.”

Rebecca said the experience was quite memorable.

“It is pretty cool,” she said.

“Just to have this massive bird - you don’t usually get an opportunity to be so close to them and see all their details and all their facial features and all that sort of stuff.”

Shelly said it was great to see this story have such a good outcome but wanted to remind people to be careful around wildlife - especially larger animals.

“Wedge-tails for me fall into that category of animals that people shouldn’t try and catch themselves,” she said.

“That’s like emus and kangaroos as well, because even if they’re injured, their feet are just so deadly.

“They should call us, and we’ll go out and have a look.”

Shelly told The Spectator even with her years of experience, she ended up in hospital one time from an eagle after just a momentary lapse of concentration, accidently brushing her hand against its feet while she was handling it.

“It felt it and it just grabbed and latched on and its whole talon went into my hand,” she said.

“I still had a hold of his ankles - because naturally, they put the talons in and then wrench their foot away. But he wasn’t able to do that, because I still had his legs.

“It was pretty awful. Definitely not one that people should try and catch.”