• It is a remarkable species of eagle, very fast and dynamic. It weights about 5-7 kilos and has a wing span of 2.80 meters.
• Harrier Eagles usually build two or three nests but lay their eggs in only one of them in mid-winter (December or January).  Both parents incubate the eggs for about two months, when the eggs begin to hatch. By June, only one small brown bird flies away from the nest.
• Shepherds in Crete call harrier eagles "bones", because they mostly eat bones (70-90%).  They break the bones on rocks using a special technique: They drop the bones from a very high altitude onto steep rocky cliffs and then follow them. They repeat this procedure until the bones are broken.  
• At the beginning of the century, the harrier eagle had become almost extinct from most European countries. Nowadays, they live in secluded in areas of the Pyrenees or Corsica while the species has been reintegrated in the Alps during the last 13 years. In Greece harrier eagles are found in most rocky areas. Crete hosts the largest number of harrier eagles in the world, with at least 10 million pairs.   
• Main threats: destruction or downgrading of their biotopes, disturbance during the reproductive period, reduction of the wild ruminant population, recession of the mountain agriculture, hunting and use of poisoned baits. 

The Hellenic Ornithological Society is active for their protection.