Bygone birding: Scottish naturalist fed unusual 'delicacy' to eaglet in an eyrie - a banana skin

                                                               

Seton Gordon (1866-1977)  -  naturalist, photographer and author

From The Scotsman  newspaper - Saturday 25 January, 1913

Mr Seton Gordon recounted his experiences of stalking golden eagles, snow bunting , ptarmigan and other birds of the hill country in their haunts in the Highlands of Scotland to an audience in the Royal Institution.

He related the story of his frequent visits to an eyrie where he became on quite familiar terms with the eaglet  which took food from his hand and ate with relish a banana skin, and afterwards ate the paper bag which had contained the bananas. 

The favourite food eaglets, he said, was grouse  but he had known eaglets to feed exclusively on rabbits, while in other cases the diet had been varied by hares, squirrels and stoats.