Birdpass
English
Short-toed Snake Eagle

Short-toed Snake Eagle

Circaetus gallicus

Identify the Short-toed Snake Eagle by sound or photo and log your sightings with Birdpass.

  • Download on the App Store
  • Get it on Google Play

The Short-toed Snake Eagle is a medium-large eagle that specialises in hunting snakes. It ranges from the Mediterranean across southern Russia and the Middle East to the Indian subcontinent, and European birds winter in sub-Saharan Africa. It has strikingly pale underparts, a brown hood, a rounded, owl-like head with bright yellow eyes and a barred tail, and spends much of its time soaring over warm, open country.

Did you know?

  • It can hover in place like a giant kestrel while scanning for snakes.
  • When it tackles large snakes, it may end up wrestling them on the ground.

Voice

Call

About the species

Identification

A medium-sized eagle, brown above and clearly pale below. The wings are broad and fairly long, with fine barring on the belly and underwing; the tail is relatively short and lightly barred. The head is large and rounded, the face pale and the eyes bright yellow; adults often show a dark brown hood. Its habit of hovering while scanning for prey, combined with these features, separates it from buzzards and most other raptors.

Family

Accipitridae

Size

Very large (swan)

Colours

brown, white, grey, yellow

About the habitat

Warm, dry open landscapes with abundant reptiles – heaths, garrigue, stony scrub, foothills and open woodland mosaics, with trees for nesting.

Diet

Mainly snakes, which it swallows whole head-first, as well as lizards; occasionally small mammals, birds and large insects.

Behaviour

Spends long periods on the wing, soaring on updrafts and thermals and often hovering heavily while scanning the ground for reptiles. It sometimes wrestles large snakes on the ground. Usually quiet but gives musical whistles. It nests in trees and lays a single egg.

Sources

Photo: Tisha Mukherjee, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Short-toed Snake-Eagle in Bhigwan August 2025 by Tisha Mukherjee 01.jpg

Sound: Benoît Van Hecke, XC545848, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://xeno-canto.org/545848

Text: Wikipedia (English) + FinBIF species descriptions + Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0; FinBIF: CC BY 4.0; Wikipedia: CC BY-SA 4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short-toed_snake_eagle

See also