Reg and Gabrielle Smith were on a Dorset coast path walk in the Lulworth Cove area at around 9.30am on Monday, March 23, when they saw a majestic white-tailed eagle flying ahead.
Mrs Smith managed to take a photo of the massive bird of prey on her mobile phone.
She said: “It was very exciting to see it. It was quite a thrill, especially to see it when we were having a walk around and not specifically looking for birds.”
“It’s quite a sighting for Dorset,” Mr Smith said.
“If you go to Scotland you will see them in the Western Isles. It’s the size of a large turkey. It looked a bit grumpy!
“I did have initial concerns for our dog but it wasn’t interested in us.”
The photo of the sighting has drawn much admiration on social media, with more than 2,000 likes on the Dorset Bird Club on Facebook and people commenting ‘just stunning’, ‘wow’, ‘terrific’ ‘awesome’ and ‘very exciting to see’.
The Smiths said they were told by twitchers they came across in Purbeck that a pair of eagles had been seen in the area, along with a chick. These birds were said to be raised in Newlands on the Isle of Wight.
“Its wingspan was huge,” Mrs Smith said.
Mr Smith, who works in the poultry industry, said he thought the bird they saw was a male white tailed eagle.
It was a quiet time on the coast path when they spotted the eagle, and they also saw a wheatear and a newly returned swallow.
The couple live near Leamington Spa in Warwickshire and plan to move to Dorset in the future, where Mr Smith is originally from.
The breath-taking sighting of the species comes four years after an investigation was launched after two of the eagles were found dead – with one found deceased in Dorset.
The white-tailed eagles had been released as part of a reintroduction project by Forestry England in a bid to bring the breed back to the country after an absence of more than 240 years, by releasing up to 60 birds over five years.
The birds – which are nicknamed flying barn doors because of their wingspan of up to 2.5 metres – were once widespread across England before they were wiped out.
In March 2022 Dorset Police made the decision to drop their investigation into the death of the bird.
The RSPB says the white-tailed eagle is identifiable through its brown body plumage with a conspicuously pale head and neck, which can be almost white in older birds, and the tail feathers of adults are white.
“In flight it has massive broad wings with ‘fingered’ ends. Its head protrudes and it has a wedge-shaped tail,” the nature charity says.
In September last year a white-tailed eagle was spotted flying over Lodmoor Country Park in Weymouth and a male white-tailed eagle was seen chasing a female osprey over a catch at Poole Harbour in August.
In February 2025 one of the eagles was seen flying over north Dorset, having travelled from the Isle of Wight. The female bird’s ring code identified that she had flown from the island.