A pair of rare golden eagles chose Valentine's Day to mate, Italian officials said on Friday.
The birds' coupling took place a few metres from a monumental face of Benito Mussolini carved in the 1930s into the Apennine mountains near the Marche town of Acqualagna, council officials said.
The ''happy event'' could be viewed on YouTube, they said.
The number of golden eagles in Italy dropped dramatically after World War Two but protection schemes have recently pushed numbers back up to around 500 pairs, concentrated in the Apennines and the Alps.
In other countries, such as Sweden and Denmark, the bird has been reintroduced in lower-lying areas.
