Reproductive adults are residents and normally occupy a territory all year round. Juveniles and immature birds, which form the majority of the population on national territory, disperse to areas rich in food throughout their first years of life. The formation of breeding pairs can start when birds are three years old, but exceptional cases have been recorded of two-year-old eagles nesting.
The Iberian Imperial Eagle has extensive territories, that can reach to 4000 hectares, chosen considering the availability of prey and the location of the main hunting areas.
Being a top predator, the presence of this species limits the abundance of generalist predators (smaller birds of prey, corvids and small carnivorous mammals).
Strongly territorial, pairs defend their territories from potential competitors, performing dives and vocalising strongly, and attacking the intruders when these dissuasion signals are not effective. Their vocalisation is identical to barking (“owk-owk-owk”) and somewhat similar to crows.
This species captures most of its prey on the ground, spending a large part of its time at observation points or gliding in search of food. Their preference for areas with large amounts of common rabbits has been suggested to be a limiting factor to their population growth.
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