I seem to have been seeing more Wedge-tailed Eagles (wedgies) the last two months or so. For instance, on the Angair bird walk at Lot 2 in Aireys Inlet in April, three wedgies were floating around together.
Wedge-tailed Eagle
To get further information, I checked eBird for wedgie counts from bird lists for the Surf Coast. The data is shown aggregated week-by-week, with an average of around 40 bird lists recorded per week. But nothing conclusive: every year since 2021 including 2026, some weeks no wedgies, but generally around 5 per cent of weekly bird lists record at least one wedgie and sometimes count is as high as 15 per cent. Of course, with that famous tail, wedgies are an easy raptor to id, and maybe that helps their count. However, other raptors such as Whistling Kite, Nankeen Kestrel and Black-shouldered Kite show similar counts on the Surf Coast.
James Orton