Eagle Feeding

During a tour of the mangrove forest, your tour may enter a small cove set aside for eagle feeding. This is a particularly interesting feature of mangrove forest tours, and its worth checking to see if the tour you're booking will include it. However, it's worth noting that the practice is probably frowned on by environmentalists, so it may be be going on any more.

Eagle Feeding
Some eagles feeding while more circle

The feeding starts with the boat circling the cove while revving its engine. This apparently translates to a dinner bell for the eagles, who associate boat engines with fishermen, who often discard small fish caught in their nets, which the eagles easily catch.

Eagles swooping
A sea eagle swooping past a brown eagle

Once the eagles start circling, our guide began tossing chicken entrails on to the water. After the boat had moved off a little, the circling eagles began swooping down across the water to grab up the food. At one point, it appeared that there were at least 20 eagles circling and feeding.

Eventually, some larger sea eagles moved in on the action and joined the competition for what was left. The eagles continued feeding until all the chicken pieces were gone from the surface of the cove.

Perched eagles
Eagles perched in the mangrove trees

As we left the cove, we could see some eagles perched in the mangrove trees and got a couple of good pictures of them.