The first confirmed birth of a white-tailed eagle in Co Waterford for over 150 years has taken place.
The chick is the result of the White-Tailed Eagle Reintroduction Programme, run by the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS).
The programme has been in place since 2007 and aims to restore the white-tailed eagle to Ireland.
The species was once widespread but was driven to extinction more than 100 years ago due to human activity.
Watch: Rare footage of white-tailed eagle in Waterford
Project Manager Eamonn Meskell estimated that a white-tailed eagle was last seen in Waterford around 1870.
The birth is "hugely significant", he said, as the chick's parents moved there, rather than being introduced in the region.
"Generally, the eagles' migration has been north and west. So to see a pair migrate to Waterford proves that the project is working."
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Mr Meskell added that it is the first birth on the eastern side of the River Shannon since the project began.
He was in the original NPWS team that went to Norway to bring the first white-tailed eagles to Ireland as part of the programme.
Mr Meskell said that finding and organising sites to release the birds is a "huge process", but news of new chicks being hatched gives "a sense of satisfaction out of it".
The parents, known as K and L, are raising their chick on the lower River Blackwater, north of Youghal in Co Cork.
K and L were released from a site on the river, on the Waterford-Cork border, in 2021 and have been monitored since then.
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Mr Meskill explained that when chicks from Norway are released, they tend to drift north and west, but a release on the River Blackwater in 2021 may explain why the birds moved towards Waterford.
"They fly around the country. I suppose they're putting an aerial map into their brain to see what the country is like, where the territorial areas suitable to them would be.
"I suppose this pair, specifically, would have come from a release cage in the southeast of the country.
"So they wouldn't have drifted east from the cages that we had already, but they'd have come from a cage that was on the Blackwater river."
Breeding pairs have already established nests in Clare, Cork, Tipperary and Galway and Mr Meskell said there are approximately 75 white-tailed eagles in the wild.
The number is relatively small, he said, but the birds are self-sufficient and the team believes the project is successful and will become more successful.
White-tailed eagles are apex predators, Mr Meskill said, but they face a number of challenges in the wild including avian flu, poisoning and wind turbines.
He said he believed that wind energy will have the greatest impact on them, but there are satellite tags on most of the birds to track their movements.
Mr Meskill said the Waterford birth "gives confidence that the whole project is sustainable and working".
"It is so satisfying to see."
