A young golden eagle attacked a toddler in Norway, clawing her so badly that she needed stitches, in what an ornithologist says is likely to have been the bird’s fourth such attack on humans in the past week.
The bird’s unusual aggression occurred over five days across a vast mountainous area of southern Norway.
The golden eagle – common in Norway and the Scandinavian country’s second-largest bird of prey – typically eats smaller animals, as well as foxes and sheep.
The toddler and the bird’s other victims needed stitches and medication for deep gouges.
The bird was killed after the attack on the small child.
The golden eagle “likely had a behavioural disorder” that prompted the attacks, Alv Ottar Folkestad, an eagle expert with BirdLife Norge, told The Associated Press on Monday.
“What happened is radically different from normal,” he said, adding that the attacks were probably all by a female eagle born this year.
“Details in the plumage make me believe it is the same bird. The plumage means that no two golden eagles are alike,” Mr Folkestad said, adding that in the past days there were “favourable weather conditions” with high-altitude winds for the eagle to fly long distances over southern Norway.
In the most recent attack, a 20-month-old girl was playing outside a farm in Orkland, a small municipality in the south, on Saturday when the eagle came “out of the blue” and clawed her.
The girl’s father, who was not there during the attack, told Norwegian broadcaster NRK that the mother and a neighbour raced to fight the eagle.
The raptor attacked three times before it was killed when hit with a piece of wood, Mr Folkestad said.
The father said his daughter got a couple of stitches in the back of her head and has scratch marks from the eagle’s claws under her chin and on her face.
The VG newspaper said that one of the wounds was just under one of the girl’s eyes.
The girl and the mother are doing fine.
Neither the toddler nor the family were identified and they have asked not to be contacted, NRK said.
Police said they were aware of the attack but have no detailed knowledge of the incident, saying a gamekeeper had been contacted.
Three other people have reported being attacked, including a man who caught the incident on camera.
Mariann Myrvang, who was attacked on Wednesday, told NRK she cried out for help when “something big and heavy landed on my shoulders”.
“I went down on my knees, because I couldn’t stand up.”
Armed with a branch, her husband managed to chase the eagle away.
The claws went deep into Ms Myrvang’s flesh and she later received penicillin and a tetanus shot at the hospital.
The golden eagle measures between 80cm and 93cm long (about 2ft 7.5in to 3ft long) and have a wingspan of about two metres (6.5ft).
The male bird is the smallest and weighs between 3kg and 4kg (6.6lbs to 8.8lbs).
Females can weigh up to 5kg (11lbs).
